


Déjà Vu

by Xekstrin



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-26 03:05:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16673530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xekstrin/pseuds/Xekstrin
Summary: Simone is a woman unlucky in love. Crippling anxiety keeps her from dating in real life, so she finally tries her hand at online matchmaking and gets paired with a fencer with a large personality and a strangely spelled name.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi this has almost nothin to do with canon. I wrote this when I was 19 I think? and never posted it here, so I'm fixing that.

== _Your algorithms have come in. Based on your profile, you and this person should really hit it off! Have fun_.==

Algorithms, huh? Seemed sketchy to her. 

Though Pext was technically just a site for people with common interests to mingle, it was an unspoken rule that if you didn’t state otherwise on your profile, you were looking for a date. It wasn’t a dating  _site_ , of course, not marketed towards those lonely singles who were prowling around the market for a pair. Plenty of folks used it for chatting with friends, finding fellow fans to argue with about television and cartoons and music, and for the occasional online game.

And Simone used Pext for most of those things. But tonight she finally changed her interests, after many months using the site, to “Dating.”

So now she stared at this empty text box, waiting for the other person to talk first. Their screen name was Pen-Is-Mightier, and their profile stated they were female. Trailing over her likes/dislikes, she noted the ones they shared in common. Writing, being outdoors, cats, singing, and most interestingly: Tchaikovsky. Her favorite color was blue… and she was twenty-five years old.

The slow-growing smile on her face fell. That was an almost seven-year age gap. True, it wasn’t a scandalous difference, but her mind automatically did the calculations: when Simone graduated high school, this person would have been just beginning sixth grade.  _Don’t jump the gun_ , she told herself, trying to muster up the nerve to say something. This wasn’t even a date, this wasn’t even the prelude to a date. This is her chatting to a stranger like she’d done plenty of times before.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, small pin pricks of sweat stinging the back of her neck. Slapping one open palm against her desk, she cursed at herself in disgust. Why was it that she had no problem talking to people both online and off about anything, but the minute any sort of romantic application could be held to a situation, she turned into a clam? Why was this so much more difficult?

As she was busy berating herself, her speakers dinged and the text box lit up. Pen-Is-Mightier had pexted her. Relieved, anxious, and curious, she opened up the message and took a look.

Simone inched closer to her screen.

PIM:  **“Tchaikovsky, huh?”**

Eye-C:  _He’s not my favorite, but he’s more popular so I figured it would be a good conversation starter._

PIM:  **she speaks!**  
PIM:  **yes pexter seems to think this soul-bonds us**  
PIM:  **we’ll see**

That made her laugh. At least PIM wasn’t suffering heart palpitations over this. That was encouraging, and because she could hide behind her monitor no one had to know her hands still shook from the nerves that plagued her. Steeling herself, she typed a quick response  
  
Eye-C:  _I don’t know about soul-bonding, but at least I was right about it sparking discussion._  
  
Whoever this girl was, she was a fast typist. While Simone mulled over each word, PIM fired off her thoughts almost as fast as they entered her mind. A steady stream of rambling and somewhat scattered ideas pinged one right after the other on their chat client.  
  
PIM:  **is it though? or is pexter predicting our imminent success through their award winning match-making program  
** PIM: **unless their so-called algorithms are really just matching people together based on how many subjects they have in common in their “likes” page.  
** PIM:  **but really what are the chances of that  
** PIM:  **oh wait that’s exactly what their algorithms are  
** PIM:  **whoops  
** PIM:  **how awkward would it be if our likes pages were identical on every level but mine also happened to say “white supremacy”  
**PIM:  **do you figure their algorithms take that into account**

Eye-C:  _You’d be pretty disappointed in me, then. I’m not white._

PIM:  **thank god you responded. for a moment I was afraid that joke had crossed the line**

Eye-C:  _It toed the line.  
_Eye-C:  _But I’ve fumbled first impressions before, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt until you start showing off the gigantic tattoo of the Confederate flag you have plastered across your entire back._

PIM:  **haha! okay, then. I’ll keep a tighter filter on my words in honor of your kindness  
**PIM:  **and if you could do me another kindness and explain your interesting handle I’d be much obliged, ma'am**

Eye-C:  _Oh… It’s something my friend made for me._  
Eye-C:  _Winter is my favorite season and every variation of Icy and Snowflake were already taken up.  
_Eye-C:  _It’s actually a terrible pun. I’m sorry._

PIM:  **oh, I see  
** PIM:  **HAHA  
** PIM:  **“eye-c”. I get it. I geeeett it  
** PIM:  **but if you hate it so much, you know you can change it, right?  
**PIM:  **“eye-c” is the permanent name on your profile, but for chats you can change it to whatever you like**

Another notification popped up on the lower right corner of her screen, with an unfamiliar sound to it. The message box informed her: 

 ==  _ **PIM**  has changed their screen name to  **Fionna**_ == 

 That must be her real name, even if it was an unusual spelling. Something about it tickled the back of Simone’s brain, a small flutter of déjà vu. But it was like thirst in the middle of the night; she pushed it back and returned to the conversation. 

==  _ **Eye-C**  has changed their screen name to  **Simone**_ ==

* * *

 

The months melded into each other, spring searing up into one of the hottest summers ever reported on the news. Everyone around her at work and in her social life grumbled about it. Only Fionna took a positive spin on it.

PIM:  **at least one good thing is coming out of all this!**

Simone:  _What? : )_ **  
**

The air conditioner had broken earlier that day. Steadily draining a tall glass of lemonade her neighbor had made for her, Simone angled her fan so that it pulled in the hot, stagnant air from the outside. It failed to do little else except faintly stimulate the hot, stagnant air of her apartment. 

She was glad Fionna couldn’t see her as she was now, half-naked and surrounded by papers that still needed grading. Summer school was in full swing, and this latest crop of students were really testing her patience.While she had taken a small break to see if the internet could distract her from the ungodly heat, she planned to get back to work soon enough so that she could maybe get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight.

Shock made her forget which tube food went down as she accidentally tried to breathe lemonade. Coughing and choking on her laughter for a few seconds, she wondered what bubble tea was, but also couldn’t deny the itching urge to use this as an invitation to flirt harder. Did she dare risk upsetting Fionna?

 Well, why the hell not. Fionna was far from delicate.

When she heard the name of the store, the same insistent ping of familiarity rang in the back of her mind as when she found out Fionna’s real name. It hovered on the end of her tongue, the connections forming in her mind. Still, she couldn’t quite piece it all together until she looked out her window, down the street, and saw the familiar logo. She had seen it countless times, walking to her car or to the local grocery store, but because she didn’t have enough disposable income to justify coffee that was four dollars a cup, she had never bothered to go in.

Simone:  _Pink Koffee Kup  
_Simone:  _There’s actually one of those near my apartment!_

PIM:  **what  
**PIM:  **really**

Simone:  _Yes, what are the odds?_

PIM:  **pretty unlikely. I didn’t know that place was a chain, I thought there was just like one of them**

A sense of alarm grew inside her. Setting down her sweating glass, Simone typed faster than she thought she could, trying to get her concerns out.

Simone:  _Are you sure? There’s no way we’re talking about the same place._

PIM:  **idk let me google it**

The apartment grew warmer, the fan doing little else except dry the salt on her skin. Though she had known they were in the same time zone, she hadn’t guessed she and Fionna might actually live in the same city. What would she do if it turned out they were neighbors this whole time? Was this a sign? Did those stupid “algorithms” knowingly put together two people who might be able to make a real-world connection?

Her pulse skyrocketed.

PIM:  **Unless you currently live in Quebec, we are talking about the same Pink Koffee Cup.  
**PIM:  **In fact, we were almost neighbors. Celia and I were looking at apartments in that area.**

The fact that Fionna bothered to use proper grammar rules didn’t escape Simone’s notice. Somehow, she began to breathe easier. Though the knowledge was shocking, all the tension building inside her flowed away at the revelation.

Simone:  _…Well._

PIM:  **Yeah.**

Simone:  _Well._

PIM:  **huh**

Simone:  _Well…_

PIM:  **please say something else because I’m freaking out here**

Simone:  _Are you?_

PIM:  **YES!  
** PIM:  **THIS IS SO WEIRD.  
**PIM:  **PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE JOSHING ME.**

Simone _: What do you want me to do, take a picture from my apartment’s window? I can see the place from right here._

PIM:  **omg all those times  
** PIM:  **I’ve been there… I went last month to celebrate some good news  
** PIM:  **and I might have even seen you and never knew  
**PIM:  **oh my ogd**

What to do now? Make a joke out of it? Possibly bring up the fact that she liked Fionna more than she thought she would? Ask her out, finally? Though they both had the unspoken knowledge that they were looking for someone, they had never brought up the fact that maybe that someone could be each other.

When in doubt, make a joke.

Simone:  _Sooo… Does this mean you’re going to really buy me bubble tea, now? ; D_

PIM:  **What I just can’t  
** PIM:  **go whenever I feel like it I  
** PIM:  **i don’t live in that part of town anymore i live like two hours away ever since we moved to cake’s mom’s house  
**PIM:  **I mean I don’t live close to it it’s quite a trek**

Simone:  _Cake?_

PIM:  **my sister Celia that’s her nickname  
** PIM:  **foster sister  
** PIM:  **we live together I told you that right  
** PIM:  **long story short we saved to buy her mom’s house so it’s ours again yay life  
**PIM:  **how much about me do you know, anyway**

While not totally unreasonable, Simone felt a flicker of sadness at Fionna’s reaction. No doubt she was regretting every conversation they had ever had, now. What had she expected, really? Even though they spoke almost every day, she was still probably just some internet stranger Fionna felt like chatting up. Wanting to repair some of the damage she had done, Simone changed her name back to the handle it used to be, trying to distance herself from this conversation as much as she could.

== _ **Simone**  has changed their screen name to  **Eye-C**_ ==

Eye-C:  _I’m sorry, Fionna._

PIM:  **for what**

Eye-C:  _You’re upset over this, and I feel responsible somehow._  
Eye-C:  _If you want, we can stop talking to each other.  
_Eye-C:  _It’s not like I know what you look like, and if you feel unsafe now I completely understand._

PIM:  **What? no no no n o  
** PIM:  **no it’s not that  
** PIM:  **I mean I AM a little freaked!  
** PIM:  **But I’m excited too!  
** PIM:  **jeez lady, give me some credit. if I didn’t like you I wouldn’t talk to you every globbing day.  
** PIM:  **and I do like you. a lot. in a more-than-friends way  
** PIM:  **okay wow shit I didn’t mean to say that so soon wooooowww  
**PIM:  **now you’re gonna run off ~*and then she never heard from her again *~ shit shit shit**

Eye-C:  _I_

She hit 'enter' too early.

 

Staring stunned at the computer, Simone slowly typed out the rest.

 

Eye-C:  _I didn’t know how much I wanted to hear that._  
Eye-C:  _What I mean is, I like you too.  
_Eye-C:  _But I thought it might be just me._

PIM:  **it’s not just you**

PIM:  **I was just waiting for you to be overcome with emotion before you confessed it  
**PIM:  **this is okay tho I can live with this**

Eye-C:  _Hmph!  
_Eye-C:  _The only emotion I’m ever overcome with is the urge to correct every post you make._

PIM:  **that, too  
**PIM:  **I’m surprised you haven’t strangled me yet with your internet connection. You’re an English teacher, right?**

Eye-C:  _Too many people gave my parents grief about their inability to speak English “correctly” for me to feel right making that sort of judgement on you._  
Eye-C:  _But yes, you drive me mad.  
_Eye-C:  _Stark raving mad._

PIM:  **i dunno  
**PIM:  **i cuold be a lot wurse**

Eye-C:  _You stop that.  
_Eye-C:  _Stop that this instant._

PIM:  **y stop tho when i could get u all riled up  
**PIM:  **is this turnin u on babe**

Eye-C:  _FIONNA!_

PIM:  **SIMONE!!! : D!!**

Eye-C:  _I’m turning this infernal machine off and finishing my grading._

PIM:  **awwww  
** PIM:  **Okay, I’ll stop.  
** PIM:  **But why not get on vidchat? That way I could keep you company while you grade.  
** PIM:  **And, you know, you could see my face.  
**PIM:  **Just to prove I’m really not so scared by the idea of bumping into you on the street ; )**

Biting her upper lip and pulling her hair into a bun, Simone did her best to ignore the way her heart pounded at the idea. She glanced over at her reflection in the mirror: no makeup, no pants, sweating like a pig, and still overwhelmed with work. 

Eye-C:  _I feel as though a truck ran me over. My face isn’t fit for polite company, currently._

PIM:  **I don’t mind!**

Eye-C:  _Yeah, right. Then you take one look at me and run screaming in the opposite direction._

PIM:  **now why would I do that  
** PIM:  **are you so horrendously ugly that mirrors crack at the sight of you  
** PIM:  **do cameras regularly implode in your vicinity  
**PIM:  **are you secretly a ghost?**

Eye-C:  _No, no, and no.  
_Eye-C:  _But my A/C broke and I’m a mess D:_

PIM:  **ahhhh  
** PIM:  **all right then  
** PIM:  **because I’m so freaking generous  
** PIM:  **you can keep your camera off whilst you bask in the glory of my face  
**PIM:  **deal?**

Though  she wanted to say no, to politely decline, or possibly even just turn off the computer and rock in her chair at the idea of letting Fionna hear her voice for the first time, Simone’s fingers worked on their own. They darted onto the keyboard lightning fast, rattling out her answer before she thought too hard on it.

Eye-C:  _deal_

Before she knew it, a new  box opened up, asking her if she wanted to vid chat. She confirmed, making doubly sure her webcam was off before she allowed Fionna to call her. After a few moments of loading, she was able to see her. The image was a little grainy, but Simone could clearly make out a bright bedroom, and a small fraction of a messy desk. In the chair facing Simone was a large plush giraffe toy.

“I’m sorry Simone,” Fionna said, and a little chill ran down her spine. It had to be Fionna. She sounded young, much younger than Simone had expected, but her voice was still very pleasant to listen to. One could get used to a voice like that. “I didn’t want to tell you the truth. I am actually an inanimate object.”

Her mouth went dry. Oh no. Here it was– the nerves, the anxiety. It was like their first conversation all over again. And while she wanted to play along with Fionna’s joke, she simply couldn’t. Biting the crook of her index finger and panicking, Simone stayed deathly silent.

A pair of puzzled blue eyes came into frame, eyebrows furrowed. “Hello? You there?” She was asking her a question. She asked it again, tapping her camera and typing a message to her, asking if something was wrong.

“Yes. Yes, I’m here,” Simone said at last, heart pounding. “Sorry, my mic went out.”

“Oh darn.” Tossing the giraffe aside, Fionna sat back in her chair and let Simone study her at last. All that she could see she soaked up in an eyeblink. She was blonde, like she had said. Short round nails. Bandages on the knuckles of one hand. Her smile brightened her entire face. “You missed my grand opening.”

“No, I saw it.”

Fionna laughed, throwing her head back without fear. Oh God, was Simone glad she hadn’t agreed to show her own face right now. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep herself from staring. At the moment it took all her willpower not to creepily touch the image of her face, to test if perhaps she could teleport herself over to where Fionna was. “Yeah, sorry. I’m literally twelve.”

“You sound like it,” Simone said without thinking, her hand groping her desk for a new paper to grade. She needed to cement herself in reality, quickly.

Her temper flicked on like a light switch, eyes narrowing. “Hey!”

“It’s a good thing,” Simone reassured her, scribbling on her arm to make sure there was ink in the pen. “Your voice is cute.”

“Hmm.” Fionna said back in her chair, rubbing her chin. “Well, I’m glad you like it, at least. Your own voice isn’t too shabby, either. I was expecting the deep baritone of a ghoul who’d never left her haunted house...”

Though some people acted differently when talking than while typing, Fionna seemed to spring naturally from the persona she had crafted online. She spoke thoughtlessly, but not cruelly. Her mind jumped from concept to concept almost quicker than Simone could keep up. “You didn’t warn me about your face,” Simone said, looking at the stacks of essays waiting for her and wondering if she should be gentle to her students today. How aggressively she insisted on proper comma usage depended on her mood, some days.

Fionna beamed at the praise. “What, this old thing? I’ve had it since I was born.”

There she went again, being too charming for her own good. Simone couldn’t help but laugh. Though still shaky with nerves, she was smiling more than she had in weeks. Seeing Fionna almost in the flesh was… well, it was exhilarating. They would have to do this again, on a day when Simone felt more confident about her own appearance.

Even though they never learned the cause, for the next few weeks her students were grateful for Simone’s sudden ease on her normally stringent grading policies.

 

* * *

 

Many different excuses invariably came up, but after a long time of hemming and hawing, Simone dared to show her face as well as her voice. Fionna never pressured her into it, of course. But as the days rolled by and their daily text chats turned into voice chats and the occasional vidchat, Simone began to feel as though she was being unfair.

“So, here I am,” she said, positioning her webcam and hoping it wasn’t sophisticated enough to catch the occasional nervous twitch in her eye. She took a sip of her tea to occupy her mouth for a moment as she grabbed for something else to say. “You’re welcome.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Fionna asked her, chin in her hands and grinning hugely at her monitor. “This is a pretty big step in our relationship.”

“Oh, cut it out.”

“No, I’m serious! Also hi, Simone face. It is a good face, and I enjoy looking at it.”

Getting up from her chair, Simone gestured at herself as she twirled around. “Here you are, the entire package. This particular model has held up well over time, but is unfortunately not for purchase.”

Fionna snapped her fingers, trying to look cross. “Damn! Now what do I put on my Christmas list?”

“I don’t know,” Simone said, setting back down on her chair and spinning around once. “You tell me. Maybe you’ll get lucky and Santa will bring you something.”

“A sewing machine,” she said without hesitation, rattling off a list she obviously had pre-prepared. It had the tired air of repetition around it. “A snazzy tie, the new Lobster Telephone CD, and some sort of flowering plant with a weird name I can’t remember.”

That sounded suspiciously like a list full of gifts for other people. “But what’s on your list?” Simone insisted, twirling the cable of her mouse around her fingers. Grimacing at her chipped nails, she made a mental note to tend to them later. “What do you want for Christmas?”

A defensive stiffness grew in the square set of her shoulders. “Nothing. Isn’t it too early to think like that?”

“It’s November,” Simone reminded her. “Calm down, Fionna. I’m not going to break into your house and leave gifts for you if you don’t feel comfortable receiving them.”

She twisted her jaw, fingers drumming on the arm of her chair. Her hair was pulled back today, the makeup around her eyes smeared from sweat. No doubt she had just come back from fencing practice, and decided to get online before showering. That had been about half an hour ago. “It’s not that,” she said, testing the words against her teeth before  she said them. That was unusual for her, so Simone paid closer attention. “It’s that what I want is impossible.”

There was silence, then. A kind of melancholy that had never overtaken their conversations before. Leaning in closer and wishing she could do more, Simone just said. “….Try me.”

Blue eyes glanced up, wary. 

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” Simone insisted, hoping she seemed sincere in her attempt to help and not pushy. Unexpectedly, pexter began to ding with an incoming text message, notifying her of a new chat. Fionna was typing at her again, unwilling or unable to speak out loud. 

PIM:  **it’s really dumb  
**PIM:  **you’ll laugh at me**

Simone shook her head. “I promise I won’t.”

Her lip caught between her teeth, Fionna typed again.

PIM:  **my cat is dying  
** PIM:  **like I said, it’s a dumb thing to get worked up over  
** PIM:  **but she’s the only stable thing I had when I was growing up. you know? the only constant  
** PIM:  **and I don’t know how much longer she has  
** PIM:  **And I just don’t want this to be happening  
**PIM:  **I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else**

“What’s ‘everything else’?” Simone asked. “School? Family?”

Fionna nodded. “All of the above.”

“Do you know what’s wrong with her?”

“Feline leukemia. She’s an outdoor cat and got into a fight with some random stray, about three years ago. It didn’t hit her hard until now.” Blinking a few times and looking at the ceiling, she forced a smile. “And Celia is fighting with her boyfriend Mono... I mean, Moe, and they might break up. I know she’s my sister, but those two basically raised me, so seeing them this way is just… harder to deal with than it should be? It’s so petty. It’s not even my relationship, I shouldn’t care.”

A sudden stab of pity worked through her, and the overwhelming urge to just hold Fionna until this storm passed. “Oh, Fionna. That’s not a petty reason to be upset at all. If they really raised you, I imagine it’s as though your parents were getting divorced. That’s a shock to anybody.”

“Yeah,” Fionna said. “And they’re dumping half their drama on me when I just… I just want to be alone.”

They were quiet again, both of them looking at their keyboards or at the screen. After a while of fiddling with the pencils on her desk, Fionna began chewing on her lip again, running her fingers through her hair till it loosened from her ponytail in a frizzy mess. "Don’t frown“ she said pensively. "You'll wrinkle your pretty face.”

That prodded a laugh out of her. “Oh, please. Don’t flirt with me just to try and boost my mood.”

Prodding the webcamera, Simone scowled into it. “What, everything has to be about you? What if I just suddenly felt like reminding you that your face is severely kissable?"

Her temper snapped on again, lighting up fierce and quick. “Reminding me implies you’ve said it before, so don’t take that tone with me.”

“I haven’t said it before?” Simone asked, genuinely surprised. “Strange. I guess I feel as though I must have, since the thought rarely leaves my mind.”

Then, something strange happened. Fionna’s entire face flushed with blood, even as she ducked her head low in an attempt to hide it. “Yeah?” she mumbled. 

“Yes,” Simone said, heart pounding in her mouth.

Pexter chirped out its friendly notification message again, the blinking lights alerting her to a new message. 

PIM:  **what else would you do?**

Oh, this was a mistake. A big, big mistake. Her heart traveled up her throat to throb behind her eyes. Fidgeting in her seat, she still managed to type back.

Eye-C:  _I don’t know. Probably not more than that, we haven’t even been on a date yet.  
_Eye-C:  _I’m a gentleman._

PIM:  **well then maybe that could be my christmas present**

Eye-C:  _What? A date?_

PIM:  **okay now I’m being extra dumb. you’re right there why can’t I say this.**

Eye-C:  _Because we’re both probably really bad at this sort of thing in the real world._

PIM:  **are you kidding me  
** PIM:  **I’m great at this  
** PIM:  **super great  
** PIM:  **the best  
** PIM:  **so great  
** PIM:  **seducin ladies left and right I don’t even know what to do with them all  
**PIM:  **okay yeah I’m sorry I’m done**

Eye-C:  _I was wondering how long that would go on._

PIM:  **hey hey hey  
** PIM:  **don’t go puttin on airs just cause you’re  
** PIM:  **absolutely smoking hot and somehow interested in me  
** PIM:  **for some reason  
**PIM:  **ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh**

On her side of the screen, Fionna cradled her head in her arms, leaning forward on her desk and wriggling from side to side.

PIM:  **what is even my life**

Eye-C:  _Excuse me?_

PIM:  **I mean I never expected this to happen  
** PIM:  **I did the pexter thing on a dare, I didn’t expect to find anyone so cool  
** PIM:  **and to like you so much  
** PIM:  **and just talk to you every day to the point that it bothered me SO MUCH that you weren’t online all week  
** PIM:  **tho I mean I wasn’t online either because midterms  
** PIM:  **BUT I MISSED YOU A LOT? And now my worst fears are confirmed and you’re actually as attractive as you looked in those pictures you sent me  
**PIM:  **and I’m way out of my league here Simone : (**

Eye-C:  _I think I understood about half of that._

PIM:  **okay, then here’s the summary  
** PIM:  **I like you please date me  
** PIM:  **and also you’re beautiful  
**PIM:  **like as an aside, even if you never speak to me again, I have to say that. because it’s true, you’re unbelievably gorgeous.**

She tapped out the next line with just her index fingers, stamping it out letter by letter.

PIM:  **And…. you can do better than me.**

Simone responded quicker than she thought possible. 

Eye-C: _That’s not true._  
Eye-C:  _You’re amazing.  
_Eye-C:  _At least I think so._

PIM:  **I’m young and dumb**

Eye-C:  _Well hey, the first step to recovery is admitting there’s a problem._

“Oh my god,” she said, her voice squeaking on the last word with the sheer force of her indignation. Sticking her tongue out at the monitor, she gave Simone the bird. “You suck so much.”

“Not before the first date, Fionna,” she reminded her, desire dropping her tone like an anchor. 

Resting her head against her desk, Fionna covered her face, trying to hide how pink it grew. This was just utterly charming to Simone, who hadn’t known she was capable of making someone blush. Then she saw a movement, too fast for the webcam to capture, and the screen went pitch black. “This is too embarrassing,” Fionna complained, her chair squeaking the way it did when she rocked from side to side in excitement.

“Well I’m not going to sit here and just let you stare at me like a creep,” Simone said, turning off her webcam as well. “Hah. There,” she said, ignoring the long whine it produced from Fionna.

PIM:  **fine then I’m not gonna talk deal with it**

Something like a snort left her. “Fine, be that way,” she said. “But you still haven’t told me what you want for Christmas.”

PIM:  **I don’t know  
** PIM:  **to see you would be pretty great  
** PIM:  **like irl  
** PIM:  **but I have promised Christmas + xmas eve to my sister and her boyfriend assuming they don’t break up before then  
** PIM:  **so maybe  
** PIM:  **s o m e t h i n g  
** PIM:  **like new year’s?  
**PIM:  **they light up downtown and its fantastically gay and if you wind up hating me it’d be easy to ditch me there**

“You’re so convinced I’m going to hate you,” Simone said in wonder, taking another sip from her mug. It had remained unattended while she bombarded Fionna with compliments, and now seemed a good time to continue drinking. “Why is that? I had such a hard time just talking to you for the first time, and you’re so… well, charming. Even online, even through videos. It’s hard to imagine you being any less interesting in person.”

PIM:  **I’m not really that great**

She scanned the line, scoffing at it. “Am I going to have to pull out your laundry list of good qualities?”

PIM:  **well  
** PIM:  **it would be nice  
** PIM: t **o hear you say them  
**PIM:  **as opposed to typing them**

“What, that you’re intelligent and talented and pretty and I want to leave a few bruises on your neck? ”

PIM:  **sdojfgiwoaoisdfjgvdfgh  
** PIM:  **I wish it was that easy!  
** PIM:  **I just  
** PIM: I **dunno what to do or think  
** PIM:  **what does any of this mean**     
PIM:  **online relationships are confusing**

Eye-C:  _It doesn’t have to be online, only.  
_Eye-C: I _want to see you, too. And downtown really is pretty on New Year’s._

PIM:  **you really want to do this?**

“Of course!” Simone said out loud. “God, how often do I have to drill this into your skull?” Short of driving over to her right now, she wasn’t sure how she could be more clear about her intentions. 

PIM:  **I dunno  
** PIM:  **not really feeling very drilled right now  
** PIM:  **your drilling needs work  
**PIM:  **drill me harder, darling**

“Careful now,” she murmured, even as she leaned a little closer to the monitor.

PIM:  **careful with what  
** PIM:  **I don’t see anything wrong here  
** PIM:  **just the two of us  
** PIM:  **alone  
**PIM:  **in the dark**

Eye-C:  _There you go again  
_Eye-C:  _Don’t think I haven’t noticed your hamfisted attempted to steer the conversation in this direction._

PIM:  **what  
** PIM: I **am shocked and insulted  
** PIM:  **now quick, put on this rubber horse mask and lie down on the bed  
**PIM:  **don’t ask questions**

Eye-C:  _oh my god_

PIM:  **shhh  
**PIM:  **just let it happen**

Eye-C:  _Is this what you young people do in your free time?  
_Eye-C:  _Simulate kinky sex on the internet?_

PIM:  **sometimes  
**PIM:  **its great fun**

Eye-C:  _I’m obviously too vanilla for you, then._

PIM:  **no no no  
**PIM:  **vanilla’s my favorite flavor :9**

The two of them giggled over their microphones for a bit, flirting more but ultimately not doing much else. Fionna sent Simone a bit of her writing and they talked some more about their date until they were both nodding over their microphones, struggling to stay awake.

“See you tomorrow?” Fionna asked, blearily yawning halfway through her question.

“Mhmm,” Simone agreed, switching off her mic. “Night, you.”

“Night.”

 

* * *

 

By then it was just a matter of waiting. They spoke online every day– and offline, too. Exchanging cell phone numbers and reassuring each other that they had unlimited texting in their plans, they sent a volley of messages back and forth through the whole day, no longer needing to wait until they got home from work or school.

It also meant that one night, when Simone was too bedraggled to get on the computer, she flopped onto her mattress without showering and simply texted Fionna one word:

_Ugh._

**yay you’re awake**

Fionna texted back after a moment.

**what’s ugh tell me babs**

She thumbed another one word reply.

_Exhausted._

**Aww. pretend I’m rubbing your shoulders and fixing you a cup of tea.**

“Gladly,” Simone mumbled into her pillow, sending it as a message as well. It began to drizzle outside, cold seeping into the apartment from the dreary late-night air.

_What are you up to?_

**I’m with my friend, Marshall. He had a show tonight and I’m sleeping in his spare room cause I dun wanna drive in this shitty weather.**

_That’s good,_ she said.  _But I wish you were here instead._

**I wish I was, too. It looks like youre just gonna have to pretend harder.**

_I already was, remember? You’re here fixing me tea._

**all right. now pretend I’m kissing the side of your neck. my hands slide up under your shirt, touching your stomach, feeling it twitch as you gasp from the unexpected contact**

Whoa. Simone’s heart rate spiked, pounding against her chest like bird wings. Propping herself up, she used both her thumbs to text faster. Though she thought it impossible, she was actually a quicker typist on the phone than on the computer. Wonders never ceased.

_Fionna, you’re drunk. Give me your keys._

**I don’t drink. it all tastes like garbage, even the sweet stuff. now where were we.**

Before Simone could respond, another salacious message pertly announced its arrival on her phone. 

**oh yeah, I was pulling your shirt up to get a better feel. nothing unchivalrous, just the flat muscles of your stomach, the curving front of your throat. I can feel a little noise there, humming under my fingertips as it builds into a sigh.**

_how do you know I’ve got flat stomach muscles?_ Simone challenged her.  _I could be a blubbery mass. Maybe I always wear a girdle during our vidchats._

To her credit, Fionna seemed to be giving Simone enough time to respond to her messages, now.

**hahahaha. that’s cute. no, baby, you’re perfect either way. but unless you were lying about your track record, you have a runner’s body. I know what those look like. i see so many pretty girls at the gym**

_So why don’t you go bother them?_

**because I don’t want them**

_At least buy a girl a drink first, Fionna._

**i already told you i don’t touch that garbage, aren’t you listening?** she asked.  **why even bother numbing you up when what I want is for you to feel everything I’m going to do to you**

Goosebumps erupted all along the sides of her thighs, shivers crawling up her arms and neck. Her bed was too warm now and it was getting harder to find a comfortable way to sit. Squirming, her hand flopped around to find her pillow, pulling it up against herself and squeezing it tight. Fiona didn’t send anything else, obviously waiting for another response. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Simone carefully texted back.

_Then quit screwing around and help me out of the rest of my clothes._

**oh ho ho ho. NOW you’re into it, huh?**

Simone’s hands were shaking now, but she still didn’t let herself believe her reaction was just from a few suggestive text messages.

_I have been showing restraint out of a sense of propriety. After all, one could say I’m supposed to be the responsible adult here._

**we’re both adults, here. and maybe I want to take my time with you.**

_Face reality, dear. Only one of us is consistently the one who tries to edge things in a sexual direction, and it hasn’t been me. You’re desperate for this._

**awww you think you have me all figured out, huh? sure you’re not just hiding under the sexless shoolmarm facade for safety?**

_For such a talented writer, you’re leaning on a lot of really tired porn clichés._

**you love my writing, tired old cliches and all**

Speaking of cliches, Simone wondered if she could get away with a few of her own. At this point, she doubted Fionna would call her out on it. Taking off her glasses, she chewed on the temple covers. Her teeth found familiar grooves from years of the bad habit.

_I’ll admit, reading the samples you give me makes me curious about what else your hands can do._

**maybe I could drive over and show you. Marshall’s place is closer than mine.**

She laughed out loud, delighted even as her mind went wild at the possibility. A low, familiar pulse ached from between her legs, wishing Fionna would get more explicit with her promises.  

_There you go again! No restraint. It’s almost boring how predictable it is._

**haha! fuck you!**

_You’d like that, wouldn’t you?_

The rain intensified outside, but she felt none of the chill that had been present before. Everything was too warm now, her chest shuddering with heavy sighs. Switching back and forth between some of the most forward flirting she’d ever done with Fionna and cruelly antagonizing her proved a potent combination. She’d stop if Fionna didn’t seem to be enjoying it too, and the fact that she did made it all better and worse at the same time.  

Fionna responded quicker than Simone realized people could type, especially on a phone.

**the way you get inside my blood is infuriating**

_Someone come collect this poor lost child,_ she said, hands definitely shaking now. If she was tired, she had long forgotten it.  _She’s gotten in over her head._

**wait, I’ve got it. are you waiting for me to bust out the poetry? hmm? to compare you to an egyptian goddess, lashing out with one hand and healing with the other? is that what you want?**

_Maybe. I kind of like the direction you were taking before._

**Im not feeling so chivalrous right now that you’ve gotten me all riled up. I might leave a few marks on you before I finish undressing you.**

_I’d be disappointed if you didn’t._

**yeah? then you’d make it clear, and I’d catch on quickly to how much you enjoy it, biting your shoulders and digging my fingernails in deep wherever they happen to land. you seem generous, if AGGRAVATING, so I imagine you’d try to return the favor. but I won’t let you. And it’s easy. I’m stronger than you.**

Every nerve ending hummed with excitement. Even if anyone had been watching her, then, she wasn’t sure she could pretend she wasn’t flustered. Red-faced and struggling to breathe evenly, she lay down on her back with her phone above her and waited for another message. One hand fidgeted with her clothing, all of it seeming too tight. Running one hand through her thick brown hair, she wished she could pretend it was Fionna’s. But she only a small idea of what Fionna’s hands would feel like– probably more calloused than hers. Maybe even a few calluses on her palms, from the days she would forget to bring her gloves to fencing practice.

 _You sound pretty certain of that,_ she messaged when Fionna didn’t seem to be forthcoming. 

**I’ve brought down men twice your size. I’m stronger than you this is not up for debate**

_Fencing doesn’t count._

**I wasn’t talking about fencing**

_Oh, then I’d better be careful with your Very Strong Hands, lest they break me._

**it’ll be hard to make fun of me irl when these Very Strong Hands wrap around your throat**

_Was that a threat, or are we continuing the role play? Because I’m falling asleep here._

**both. Because you enjoy being manhandled, especially by me. and it’s taking a lot of strength to keep you from bucking about. because one of my hands is on your neck, the pressure just enough to keep you happy, and the other one is between your legs, giving you what you want.**

Her hand crept down the open collar of her shirt, fingers sliding over the satiny fabric of her bra. She’d take off her clothes to be more faithful to the scenario Fionna had cooked up for them, but frankly, she didn’t see the point in it when there wasn’t really another body pinned on top of hers. Or another person’s hand instead of her own popping free the buttons on her pants to feel how wet she’d already become. Firmly stroking between her legs, she squeezed the cell phone unconsciously in her other hand, eyes closing as she wondered what would come next. 

And then the phone started buzzing. 

Dropping it and whipping her hand back out of her pants as though she’d been caught, Simone looked at the screen to see that it was on vibrate– and she had accidentally called Fionna. It only rang a few times but before Simone could frantically cancel the call, she heard her girlfriend on the other line.

She sounded nervous, a small tremor in the back of her voice. “Simone?" 

Oh, great. Frozen between hanging up and answering, Simone just put the phone against her ear and listened. 

"Simone…” Fionna said again, trailing off uncertainly. “Did you butt dial me? Are you currently lying in a post orgasmic stupor? Cause that was pretty quick of you. Come on, say something.”

When Fionna prompted her to speak, it was hard not to obey. “Sorry. I ah…” Simone swallowed. “I dialed you by accident.”

"Got too creative with the vibrate function on your phone, huh?”

“Fionna!” she said in a shout-whisper, heart pounding in her head again and too furious and guilty to say much else. Above all, Fionna was hitting too close to the mark for her comfort.

“Simone!” Fionna responded. Simone could have sworn she heard the smile in her voice. “You’re just mad I gotcha with your hand down your pants. You were, weren’t you?”

Sitting up, she tangled her fingers in her hair, trying to sift through all her thoughts. “Of course not. Don’t flatter yourself.” Catching a glance of herself in the mirror of her bedside cabinet, her face heated up at how this would have looked if Fionna had just walked in. Blouse half-undone, pants unbuttoned, hair just a few curls away from being positively disheveled; there was no way she would have gotten away with that lie if this weren’t just a phone call.

“Hmmm,” she murmured, voice as falsely sweet as aspartame. “That’s too bad. I guess I’ll put effort into it next time.”

A red hot coal fell into the pit of her stomach as she wondered if Fionna was playing this off as nothing to assuage her pride or if she actually had plans to do better. Silence stretched out between them; thoughtful, not awkward. Many of their online conversations fell into an easy quiet just like this. They probably should have served as fuel to her anxiety, but they had too much calm inside them to do anything other than ease her into a sense of safety. 

“You were being too greedy,” Simone whispered into the phone after a long time of this, trails of sweat wriggling snake-like down the back of her neck. “I wanted to touch you, too.”

A shift in the silence, heavier than before. Simone heard a little shuffle, a door closing. “Don’t worry. You would have been able to eventually, I just wanted to torture you a little first.”

“You had a whole plot worked out for your sexts. That’s adorable.”

Fionna snorted, glowering through the phone. “No it’s not. It’s calculated. I’m calculating. And I left wiggle room in there for any response you might have made, including a full out rejection.”

“How precious. And shameless. Have you always been this way, I wonder?”

“I’m just picking up the slack, baby. If I don’t keep you on your guard, you might cast all sorts of witchery on me.”

Her bra was digging into her sides. Setting the phone on speaker, she wriggled out of it carefully, keeping her shirt on. Rolling her free shoulders, Simone laughed longer than she should. “Oh, wow,” was all she said.

“You done?”

“No. I still think I have a little more in me. Ha ha ha ha ha.”

Fionna mumbled a fresh batch of swear words under her breath. “God, you are such a creep.” She paused. “No, I’m the creep. I’m the one who keeps trying and failing to seduce you long-distance.” She made a noise of frustration, halfway between a growl and a whine. “You’re still a jerk though.”

There wasn’t much arguing that last point, but Simone could challenge the first. “It’s not failing. Trust me.”

“Really?” And then: “God, this is going to make our meeting so awkward. Why can’t I think ahead for once?”

Flopping back against her mattress, she set her glasses aside and sighed. “Because you’re the impulsive one and I’m the one with crippling self doubt.” The phone was still on speaker. Her hands were free to pass along her body again, but she had a better idea. “So how much of your seduction scenario was written beforehand? Maybe it could be my bed time story.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Fionna said. “It was more like… I had a few ideas scribbled down. Lines ready to throw out, that could easily be linked to common phrases you use. But it couldn’t be too rigid, because then there wouldn’t have been any room for you to play with me.” She must have realized how that sounded, because she corrected it at once. “I mean role play with me.”

Simone decided to correct her. “You mean play with you.”

She cleared her throat. For a moment she thought that would have to stand in for a solid answer until Fionna said, “Yeah.”

“You think about this a lot.”

It wasn’t a question, but Fionna answered anyway. Artlessly, unscripted– Simone could tell, by the words she fumbled over and the way she rushed through it all. This was no monologue prepared with skill. Just Fionna, all at once. “Ye– I mean n– I mean– I don’t know. I don’t know, okay?” Her sigh buffeted against the speaker, a static-filled crumbling that made her wince. “There are times when I’m content with the way things are now,” she confessed. “Just talking for hours, and listening to you, and occasionally seeing your face when I’m lucky. The way we understand each other.”

The tension made the air still and heavy, her mouth sounding pressed up to her phone. “And then…” Her words shuddered. “And then there are times when I just want you. Raw. And I want it so bad it just drives me fucking crazy. So badly that I act stupid like this and I’m scared you’re gonna run away. But you’re not. You’re not going anywhere. Are you?”

The statement fluctuated between dawning realization and hopeful curiosity. She needed to be reassured, even though they both were fairly sure by now that they had a bond that they never thought to describe before. “No,” she said. “I don’t think I am.”

“I want you, Simone. I’ve wanted to see you. Ever since we first spoke at the beginning of the year." 

Had it really almost been a year? That was ridiculous. This whole thing was ridiculous, Simone realized. 

"It’s so much easier to keep a lid on it when I’m further away,” Fionna was saying as Simone reeled at the fact that they had put off their meeting for so long. “…but Marshall’s house is only a thirty minute drive from you. Less, with no traffic.”

“God,” Simone whispered. Knowing Fionna was so close, she could understand her frustration. “God,” she said again, squeezing the bridge of her nose. “You weren’t kidding about driving over here, were you?”

“No. Even if I was still two hours outside the city I wouldn’t have been kidding.”

An ache began to form in her heart, unexpected and uninvited. It spread through out her whole body, pulsing and sweetly painful. “Don’t tell me that,” Simone said. “Because now what’s stopping me from asking you to do it?”

“Nothing,” Fionna said, and while she had been speaking in low tones before, obviously not wanting to draw Marshall’s attention, her pitch rose sharply at the word. Simone recognized her own pain reflected in that whining gasp, and wanted more. “Nothing, nothing. Simone, I’d do anything you asked.”

“Then keep saying my name like that,” she ordered, still quiet. As if they were in the same room together, running the risk of getting caught, and not separated by several miles. Fionna did it, the sound muffled from a pillow or a blanket or her own hand, possibly. “And… tell me more.”

Her voice hitched. "About…?”

Gripping the sheets on her bed with one hand, Simone placed the other over her heart, wishing she could fill the ache there. She dug her nails into the skin of her chest, closing her eyes. “About you. About what you want.”

“You. Duh.” They both laughed at that, hushed, nervous giggles. “Ah, god. Kissing you would be a nice start, until I get to see what you look like naked. I just want to see you, all of you, and taste you too. Not through a camera, either. That’s like looking at pictures of chocolate when you’re on a diet, and…. Nnn, Simone…”

Muffling fabric blotted out her own name again. Understanding, Simone grinned. “You’re touching yourself, aren’t you?” she blurted out. Wicked pleasure burst through her at the thought.

“Of course I’m not. Just like you weren’t when you called me,” Fionna snapped back without hesitation. Damn, she was good. “Mm, but it’s not the same. I want it to be your hands, Simone. But you first; I want to feel you unravel around my fingers.”

“Just your fingers?” she said, gently prompting more out of her as her breathing intensified, the edges of her gasps growing ragged. Fionna kept using her name, just like she asked, and it gave her an unexpected thrill of power. “You mentioned tasting. Did that stop when you started fingering me?”

Fionna audibly groaned. Flutters of satisfaction rolled down her body at the sound. “Simone, please…" 

How had this happened? Simone wasn’t used to being in control of situations like this, certainly not sexual or romantic ones. But once Fionna had come charging in with her great plans to get Simone to yield to her, it felt  _right_ to grab her by the horns and flip everything around. It felt good, and they had both slipped into the roles as easy as if they had done this a million times before. 

"Please..?” she asked, staying as neutral as she could as Fionna fell apart.

“One at a time.” Gasping now. “I’ll give you anything you like, I’ll–”

There wasn’t a chance to finish. “Enough,” she told her. “ _Enough_. Enough of the phone, and enough of the damned computer, and the distance. Just get in your car, drive over here, and fuck me already." 

Fionna didn’t respond, or couldn’t. Allowing herself only a single, low note of satisfaction, Simone listened to her come completely undone. Her name spilled from Fionna’s lips, tripping over itself in its haste to escape and trailing off into sporadic, hiccuping whimpers that grew further and further apart until they finally ceased.

Then they were in silence again. Simone’s ear turned towards the phone, not listening for anything in particular but grateful for what she received. "You okay?” she asked after a while of this, wondering if Fionna had fallen asleep on her end.

She hadn’t. “Yeah,” she said. Another groan, this one more tired than a heady sign of approval. “Wondering if I should do what you told me to do.”

The fact that she was even considering it was somehow humbling. “You don’t have to…” Simone said. The rain still pounded on her windows like an angry ex-lover, demanding entry. “No, you definitely shouldn’t. Not in this weather.” She wouldn’t permit it. “Besides, I ah– em, I can take care of myself.”

Clearing her throat of residual lust, Fionna made a few other nervous noises before speaking again. “Maybe… Tomorrow? We don’t have to do  _that_ ,” she added quickly. “Just. I mean, I can’t believe you still haven’t gone to the Kup. If I lived next door to it I’d go every day.”

Picking her phone up and turning off speakerphone at last, she pressed the cool plastic to her ear. “Yeah. I don’t want to wait for New Year’s, either,” she said. “If you want to…”

“I do,” she said, leaving no room for doubt. “Lucky you, my Saturday happens to be completely free for a coffee date.”

“Lucky me,” Simone agreed. Chewing on her thoughts well before she spoke them, she longed for her previous assertiveness to return, with no luck. “And… Fionna?”

She seemed in danger of nodding off. Simone felt partly responsible for that, and proud as well. “Mmm?”

At a loss for how to verbalize her concerns, Simone began to mumble again. “Did you… Was I too…?” Too rough? Vulgar? Not vulgar enough? In the end, she resigned herself to the fact that she didn’t know what she was trying to say. “I mean, I just… hope you’re happy. When you meet me. After what we just did.”

The wonderful sound of Fionna’s delighted laugh put her at ease. “Wow, cute,” she said. “Simone, you’re really perfect. You should realize that more often.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. “For now, let’s just focus on getting through our first date intact.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Fionna said, falling deeper into a drowsy haze. Simone rested her head down for just a split second, also exhausted, but when she next opened her eyes the sun was peeking in through the blinds on her window. The phone had gone dead sometime in the middle of the night, leaving only a single text message to greet her when she started it up again.

**Night, baby. See you tomorrow.**


	2. Chapter 2

She awoke in a panic, not knowing what time it was. Though she had briefly gotten up this morning, the bed called her back for just fifteen more minutes of rest. It was a hard call to ignore. Checking her phone for new messages, she reeled at the fact that somehow she had slept in till eleven in the morning. 

Thankfully, Fionna wasn’t waiting for her. When she dialed her, she got several rings before the phone crackled and she heard her sleepy voice. “Oh no,” Fionna mumbled. “Did I sleep through our date?”

Sweeping her hair into a bun and fixing her bed, Simone laughed. “No, no. I mean, if you did, I did too. We never set a date and time for when we would meet today. Want to discuss it?” Walking out of her bedroom to the kitchen area, she fumbled around for breakfast, brain still half-asleep.

Brightened into wakefulness, Fionna squealed. “Yeah, yeah! Oh wow. We’re really doing this, huh?”

It took a lot of self control not to start up a pot of coffee for herself, as she did every morning. “Mmm,” she said, forcing herself to put the bag away. She had been trying to cut back on caffeine lately, and would only allow herself one cup a day. It would be a shame if she wasted her one cup now when Fionna was so eager to show off that little shop she loved so much. They had been talking to each other since late January, and while they had initially planned to meet up on New Year’s Eve, an opportunity had come for them to see each other in real life a little sooner. Neither of them wanted to squander it. “I uh, I don’t have anything to do today except to plan a few classes for after the break. I’ll just do that till you arrive, and meet you there. All right?”

“I’ll be there. I promise,” Fionna said, promptly followed by a very loud scream. Jolting the phone away from her ear, Simone was about to ask what was wrong until she heard Fionna giggling nervously. “Sorry. Sorry. Okay. I had to get that out of my system because I am  _freaking out_. I might just run around the neighborhood once before getting ready.” Breathing in and out, deliberately and loudly, Fionna got a better handle on her emotions. “I’m glad we’re kind of doing this spontaneously because if I had to wait another few weeks, I’m pretty sure my brains would eat themselves in a fit of anxiety.”

“Same,” Simone admitted, her stomach already turning. She set down the box of cereal she had chosen, not hungry anymore. “Oh, no,” she said, another thought hitting her hard in the solar plexus. “…What do I wear?”

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know what’s in your closet.”

“You should take your time so I can rip through my apartment a few times in search of something…"she flailed for the right word. "Something.”

“Something, something?” Fionna asked, putting a lilt on the words so that they had a sing-song quality. “Something…” she could have sworn she heard her eyebrows waggling. “ _Something_?”

Making a noise of disgust, Simone rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous. I’m hanging up and getting in the shower.”

“Think of me!” Fionna managed to squeeze out before Simone hung up, setting her phone to charge while she finished getting ready.

**OoOoOo**

Hours rolled into each other. The sun rose and inevitably began to sink again, partially hidden by gathering grey clouds. Left with no work she cared to do, a clean apartment, and a stomach full of butterflies, Simone waited for Fionna to call her and let her know when to start heading to where they were supposed to meet up. As fate would have it, Fionna’s favorite coffee shop was just around the block from Simone’s apartment, and when Fionna arrived all she would have to do was walk over and meet her.

But then noon turned into afternoon, and a steady drizzle misted the streets. 

Fionna wasn’t calling. She wasn’t picking up her phone, either. A dry laugh cracked free of her lips as she wondered if this was the online equivalent of someone leaving you after you had sex with them. It was a brief thought– she knew Fionna, or at least she thought she did, and she wasn’t the kind of girl to just chicken out after a single intimate encounter.

Was she?

Gnawing on her end of her thumb, Simone grabbed her keys on a whim and left her apartment, not willing to spend the whole day inside waiting for her online date to show up. There were still plenty of things that needed doing. Her fridge was completely empty, for instance, and she had a sizable amount of dirty laundry that had been neglected through out the week. Making sure her phone was on and the ringer fixed on its loudest setting, she told herself that nothing was wrong.

And for a while, she was almost convinced.

Then it became six o clock and she knew one of two things had happened: Fionna had chickened out and she would never see her again, or something had gone wrong. Just as she returned to her apartment with an armful of groceries, her phone began whistling out Tchaikovsky's  _Waltz of the Snowflakes_. That was Fionna’s personal ring tone. Dumping everything onto the counter, she almost tripped over her still-wet umbrella as she tried to remember where she had left her purse. Digging around in it once she found it, she retrieved her phone just before the last note, answering the call with a, “Hello, hello?”

“Simone,” Fionna said, throat thick with tears. “Hi.”

Shit. “What happened?” she asked at once, putting one hand to her temples, trying to soothe the stress headache that was building. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Fionna insisted, quickly reassuring her that no one was dead and there was no emergency. “I’m fine. Really. I just had an accident.”

Every fiber of muscle stood on alert. “An accident? Like a car accident?”

A shaky sigh. Fionna tried to laugh it off, but it sounded forced. “Mhmm,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, I just– I had to– there were police? I just completely forgot to call until my battery was already dead and I only just got to start charging it now and tomorrow they need me to tow what’s left of the car–”

Shushing her before she could get any further, Simone shouldered her purse and began moving towards the door. “Where are you?” she said, mind racing with ten different plans of action. “I’ll go get you. Is your friend helping you out– Marshall, is Marshall at least with you?”

Fionna cleared her throat. “No, I ditched him.”

“You di–” she stopped dead in her tracks. “You  _what_?”

Speaking to someone Simone couldn’t hear, Fionna murmured her thanks. A cash register clattered in the background, and she suddenly noticed that other voices occasionally broke into Fionna’s space. “When I told him where I had been heading, he threw a fit. He didn’t like that I was meeting an ‘internet stranger’. It’s really not his job to throw hissy fits but he is the best at it." 

The rain outside began pouring in earnest. Looking at her foggy apartment window, it all suddenly clicked. "Fionna,” she ground out. “Tell me you’re not where I think you are.”

“You get three guesses, and no points for guessing right.” Abruptly switching gears, some of the distress left her voice as she jumped to another topic, as she so often did. “Oh shit, they’re selling candy canes here. Hold up, I’m buying ten of them.”

She was outside. Just a few minutes by foot. Fionna was at the Pink Koffee Kup, ordering candy canes and hot coffee as though she hadn’t just been MIA for the last six hours. “You’re insane,” Simone said, and then remembering Marshall may have been Fionna’s only source of transport… “You walked? This friend of yours made you walk  _in the rain_?”

A wrapper crinkled. Speaking around what Simone could only assume was a candy cane, Fionna sounded more at ease with a mouth full of sugar. “Yes. He thought it would dissuade me, silly boy. He should know I keep my promises.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Simone said fervently, phone-hand trembling lightly. “Or– damn it, I’d threaten you for doing something so stupid if you hadn’t already had two life threatening experiences today!”

“Don’t be mad at him just because I gave him the slip,” Fionna said. “And look, I can take care of myself. Walking alone does not count as life threatening. I had a shitty day and right now all I want is to bury myself in peppermint and chocolate and maybe boba tea, if the mix doesn’t give me a stomach ache. You really can’t grudge me that.”

There had only been a few times before today that she was capable of feeling every spectrum of the human emotion clashing together at once. Equally enraged, alarmed, curious, and excited, she took a moment to ground herself and decided upon protective. “That’s not the… Look, just stay put, all right? I’m coming to get you.”

Her phone fumbled in her hands. “What, no! You’ll get wet. I Google mapped the way to your apartment, I’ll go to you.”

Where was her umbrella? “Absolutely not.” Cursing every corner of her apartment, Simone realized Fionna had hung up and must already be on her way down the street. Settling on a large towel to hold above her like a small shelter, she left her apartment without pausing to lock it behind her. Zipping down the stairs faster than was safe when half of them were probably slippery from mud tracked in by other occupants of her apartment complex, she made it to the landing in record time. Just in time, as things turned out, for her to hear the buzzer ring.

She froze mid-step.

Every day, every week, every month that marked their strange year-long courtship lashed against her brain. All of it whirled inside her like the growing storm outside, gradually draining away into nothing but a pure, blind panic. This was happening. This was really happening, Fionna was on the other side of that door and she literally had no idea what would happen once she opened it. “Not now,” she hissed at herself, raking her nails back through her hair. Too aware of how she looked, how she felt, how she smelled. What if none of it lived up to Fionna’s expectations? “She walked here,” she said, and again louder. “She  _walked_  here, in the rain. If you don’t open the door, you’re scum, Simone. Absolute scum.”

The sound of the buzzer ringing once more propelled her to action. Striding over and whipping open the door to the outside, she looked down– and down, and down. Short, she thought. In fact, that was all she  _could_  think.

Fionna stood there.

Water dripped onto the tile floor of the landing, wrung from her limp blonde hair. A candy cane jutted out of the corner of her mouth, half chewed and living on its last brittle legs. Looking up and right through her, bright blue eyes stared blankly for a moment before recognition surfaced in them. Still, she hesitated. “Simone?” she wondered, unable to keep a grin from forming. Holding it by the hook, she popped the candy cane out of her mouth. 

Simone nodded, a smile of her own pushing its way through her nerves. 

Right there, in the flesh, real.

And she was shivering. “Sorry, I look like shit. This was probably a bad idea.”

Flung back into reality without concern for how momentous this occasion was, Simone gave her a critical once-over. “You realize it now, huh?” she said, ushering her in and placing the towel around her shoulders as she polished off her candy cane. “You’re crazy. Let’s get you into a hot shower and dry clothes before you catch pneumonia, if you haven’t already.”

In response, Fionna sneezed.

“Oh god.” Simone began pulling at the roots of her hair. “There it goes.”

Laughing at her reaction, Fionna rubbed her nose on the end of the towel and continued trying to wring all the excess water out of her hair. “I live on the fifth floor, sorry,” Simone said. She didn’t dare to touch her, not yet, but still managed to guide her up the stairs and into her apartment. The other woman hung about awkwardly in her kitchen area, letting her backpack collect a puddle of water in the sink as Simone tried to procure clean clothes that might fit her.

“Uh, here you go,” she said, dropping them into her waiting arms. As she tried to retreat, Fionna caught her by the forearm, squeezing it gently and meeting her eyes again. And oh, was  _that_  a trip.

Pale and trembling, she seemed impossibly small next to Simone. Half drunk off her touch and her voice and her physical presence ( _here, real_ ), she almost didn’t catch it when she spoke. “I’m glad you were here,” she said, pausing for a moment before gripping tighter. “Thanks.”

How does someone respond to that? “I– I’m glad you came,” she decided upon, since it was the truth. Even if she was still angry with her for being reckless, even if none of this was according to plan, right now it was hard to feel anything except amazement that this was actually happening. And to her distinct pleasure, Fionna did have calluses on her palms that scraped nicely against Simone’s skin, just as she imagined. Taking a step closer, she held Fionna’s hand where it was, and the empty space between them hummed in protest, begging to be filled. 

Swallowing, Fionna was the first to break eye contact. Gaze dropping to the floor, she shuffled in her spot. “You shouldn’t,” she said, reading her mind even as she moved closer. “You’ll get…” her pause was marked by a happy sigh as Simone’s fingers ran through her wet hair, smoothing it out of her face. “You’ll get wet,” she finished in a half-hearted mumble. Holding her face lightly in her hands, now, Simone ran a thumb across her cold cheek, feeling the small imperfections. A familiar ache began pounding in her chest as Fionna dropped the clothes, winding her arms around Simone’s waist and pulling her as close as she could.

Every vein and artery in her body thrummed with pleasure at the simple touch; her fingers wove back into Fionna’s hair, holding her in place by the back of her head. Fionna’s hands fit under her jacket, feeling up and down along her back to ensure that she was real. Looking down at her, she noticed something odd.

“You have freckles?” Simone blurted out, pulling aside a handful of wet hair to see the marks traveled down Fionna’s neck and shoulders. Her voice rose in a surprisingly petty anger. “I’ve never even seen them before now… Your web camera is so shitty!” Fionna giggled at her, not used to hearing her swear. “Don’t be surprised if Santa leaves you a new one under the tree, because this is unacceptable.”

Amused by her consternation, Fionna started laughing in the way Simone loved, full-bodied and free. The gaping hole inside her chest yawned open further, spreading through out her and sprouting as a ravenous hunger. Before she could second guess herself, she kissed her, cutting her laugh off into a pleased  _Mmmmm_.

Fionna’s body melted against her, heating up wherever she could touch. Her small hands clutched at the lapels of Simone’s coat as she deepened the kiss, biting pertly at Simone’s upper lip until she complained, twitching her head back a little. Smiling and chasing her retreating lips, she licked them lightly, giving Simone a taste of peppermint and chocolate. Her strength was surprising, given her size, and soon Simone found herself struggling to keep her balance as well as keep up with the demand for more, more, more. Her back touched against the kitchen counter; she rested one hand on it, bracing herself and wondering how her shirt had ridden high enough for Fionna’s fingertips to be brushing against her stomach, or how she had somehow managed to find a spot on Fionna’s neck that made her squirm and gasp.

And then Fionna pulled away, turning aside to sneeze three times in rapid succession. “I’m–” she ruefully began, noticing the way Simone side-eyed her, before sneezing once more into the towel. “Oh god damn it.”

Pointing in the direction of the bathroom, Simone caught her breath long enough to give a simple command. “March.”

“But I–”

“Ma'am, you are not sneezing on me mid-makeout.” She pointed again, stomping her foot for good measure. “Shower, dry clothes, then maybe something hot. To drink,” she clarified as Fionna’s eyebrows started misbehaving, waggling up and down without control. “Go, shoo, before I toss you outside again. Toss the wet clothes in the sink, we’ll put them in the wash later.”

She relented, but only after sticking her tongue out and mimicking her under her breath. Simone decided to be the bigger person and let it slide, remembering that she had left half her groceries on the kitchen counter when Fionna called her. It seemed like so long ago, but condensation was only just beginning to form on the half-gallon of milk. She shoved everything into its proper place, heating up leftover soup from yesterday’s lunch in the microwave. Letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding, she touched her fingertips to her lips, barely able to believe in what had just happened. 

She’d had girlfriends before, lovers and partners, but she had never felt such an intense need for another person. Not since she was in her teens and full of uncertain feelings for girls her own age. Listening to the water move through the pipes in her walls, she had to fight the urge to sneak into the bathroom and join Fionna in the shower in order to explore just how many weak spots she had. Of course that was just a fantasy, though. She still wasn’t sure what she would do when Fionna emerged from the shower. And then there was the matter of sleeping arrangements; unless she drove Fionna back to Marshall’s place, it was pretty likely she was spending the night.

It must be the novelty of it, Simone decided. With other relationships, you get to see that person and make assumptions of them, possibly shake their hand or hold them before you got to really know them. But with an online romance, they had worked backwards. The delayed initial attraction stage was amplified by what they both already knew about each other. A year after meeting online, they finally could meet in the flesh. And it was overwhelming. Careful not to let the soup burn, Simone stewed in her own thoughts until she felt a hand tap on her shoulder and she whirled around, heart in her throat. 

Fionna toweled her hair dry, grinning, though she tried for a serious tone. “Simone, how dare you,” she said, plucking at the hem of her borrowed t-shirt. “I’m wearing the garb of my enemies right now. This is a huge insult to me and my life choices.”

Simone glanced down; she had just grabbed any old t-shirt. “What do you have against the Yankees?” she asked, eyebrows furrowing. She was only dimly aware that she should probably change soon, too– her clothes were wet, as Fionna had warned her. Most of her attention was on the shape of Fionna’s breasts swaying loosely under the cotton.

“What  _don’t_  I have against the Yankees?”

Though she only felt a vague sense of ownership with the Yankees because they came from her home town, Simone decided to act offended. “You’re not being very grateful,” she said, leaning against the counter as casually as she could, trying not to notice how the color had returned to Fionna after her bath and she looked scrubbed and pink and warm and delicious. “Take it off if you hate it so much.”

“See, I just can’t respect your orders anymore,” Fionna complained, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Bad team, bad life choices, bad everything. Casting shade on everything you own, right now.”

Rolling her eyes as obviously as she could, Simone returned to the tupperware container full of soup. Pouring a bowl for herself and Fionna, she lightly dropped, “That’s not what you said last night." 

She turned around to be greeted by an interesting sight. Fionna was sitting stiffly in her chair, entire face flushed bright red. It even coursed down her single bared shoulder, exposed from the too-big t-shirt. "Y-you’re a jerk.” She leaned over to cover her eyes as Simone laughed and slid a bowl of soup in front of her. Though at first she thought she’d be too embarrassed to eat, Fionna perked up with the promise of food, inhaling the bowl before Simone finished blowing on hers to make it cool enough for human consumption.

“Is your esophagus made of steel?” she wondered.

“I eat fast. Cake steals food.” Fionna’s tongue darted out to catch a small bit of broth on her lip. “That’s what she does, she’ll take your whole plate of fries if you’re not looking.”

At the mention of her name, a familiar sensation stirred inside her. The same way it had when she had seen how unusually spelled Fionna was, when she first saw her, when she heard her voice. Uncomfortable feelings of Déjà vu pressed on the end of her tongue like a word she forgot how to pronounce. Pushing her bowl aside, Simone rested her chin in her hands and smiled. “Tell  me more about her,” she prompted. 

“Who, Cake?" 

Simone nodded.

Sitting back in her chair, Fionna twirled one finger around a length of blond hair, thinking hard. "She’s just my sister,” she said at last. Her hands moved expressively with every thought, and now that they were face to face Simone began to notice patterns in them. Before, since her camera cut off most of the motions below the shoulders, she hadn’t been able to notice that Fionna was occasionally  _signing_  at her. “I’ve never had to describe her to anyone before. It always felt like everyone already knew her before they knew me. That I wasn’t Fionna, I was Cake’s sister. Ever since we were both kids.” She chewed on the words a little longer. “I guess to someone who’s never seen her before, she’s a lot to take in. Loud and excited, big personality. Funny. Pretty.”

“Sounds familiar,” Simone noted, still paying more attention to her hands than before.

A small smile sparked up at the compliment. “People don’t always believe we’re sisters because we’re not related by blood or anything,” she continued, “But if you spend any time at all with us it’s pretty hard to believe anything else.”

She had touched Fionna’s ears, seen them both. Nothing that looked like a hearing aid stuck out– unless that huge metal bar of a piercing was a cleverly hidden one. “And is she, uh, deaf?”

A goofy expression of disbelief painted her face. “What?” she said, slow. In her mind’s eye, Simone could see how it would be typed out in Fionna’s regular style, with a space between every letter. Then she glanced down at her own hands, comprehending. “Oh! Oh, no. That’s just habit.” Setting her hands flat on the table where they wouldn’t jump around, Fionna rushed to explain. “Her boyfriend, Moe. He is. Deaf, I mean. God, it’s so weird talking to someone who doesn’t know them, you really have to understand that. It’s a tight-knit group.”

Huh. Taking a moment to absorb it all, Simone spooned around the contents of her bowl a bit before finally wiggling out a stewed carrot to nibble on. “There’s still so much I don’t know,” she said, startling herself with how melancholy it seemed. “About you.”

“If it bothers you, I can leave, you know,” Fionna reminded her, for once the picture of complete seriousness. “Marshall knows where the Kup is. He’ll be over himself by now enough to pick me up. Which reminds me, I should let him know I’m alive.” Hopping up from her seat, Fionna went over to her backpack, still draining away in the sink. She reached inside and pulled out her cell phone, which was remarkably dry alongside its other contents. Simone could only assume the bag was made of heavy duty, waterproof stuff.

“What about your family?” Simone wondered, the thought just occuring to her. “I’m surprised they didn’t come down and drag you back home.”

“Hah, how? I wrecked the only car.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, is right.”

Letting Fionna text message Marshall, Simone herself wondered what she expected to happen next. One half of her realized this was all probably moving way too fast. But the other half felt as comfortable with Fionna as if she had known her her whole life. She wanted to fall asleep holding her, and make drowsy love to her in the early morning. Getting warm at the thought, she stirred her bowl restlessly, trying to purge the mental images from her mind. Too much, too soon.

“Bro, you need to relax. You are  _not_  my father,” Fionna was saying to her phone, texting out a reply. “PS she’s an axe murderer, XOXO Fionna.”

Simone straightened out in alarm, no longer undressing Fionna with her mind. “Don’t even joke that way!” she said. “What if he calls the police on me?”

The other woman stuck out her tongue again. Tossing her phone aside and returning to the table, she fiddled with her spoon, tapping out a regular rhythm. They began to talk like they did almost every night. But instead of two plus hours between them, there was nothing but the old wooden table her father had built early in his marriage with her mother. Fionna recounted her horrible experience earlier that day, from the accident itself to its aftermath and her long walk to Simone’s apartment. Even as Simone insisted she had been reckless, Fionna instead saw it as a challenge she had just overcome. In her words, she never broke a promise, and the universe had tried to make her do just that. It was too much of an insult to her honor to ignore it. The hours slipped by without them noticing or caring, as it always did. “I’m going to take a closer look at your book collection,” Fionna announced at one point, slapping both hands on the table and getting up. “There were at least two shelves full of literature in your bedroom and I’m going to judge your taste.”

“How surprising,” Simone said, her tone as dry as possible. “You snooped around.”

“I also saw the cello.” Her voice disappeared into the bedroom; the lights flicked on. “You never told me you played.”

“Not as much as I used to,” Simone said, staying where she was. “Never enough time. Or initiative.”

Fionna’s head popped back in the doorway, grinning ear to ear. “What if I gave you initiative?” she asked. “And oh! The lap top goes here, on this desk. Doesn’t it?” she stepped back, looking at the doorway from another perspective. “Oh my god. You sit right here when you chat with me. This is too surreal. It’s like I stepped through the camera.”

Curious to see what kind of havoc Fionna was wrecking in her room, Simone forced herself to get up and stand just outside it, watching her sit down in her desk chair and swivel around once before getting up to peek out the window. “And there’s the Kup, just like you said.” Sitting down heavier than before, Fionna let out a huge breath. “Wow.”

They were quiet. For the first time since she stepped in, Fionna finally seemed to fall into stillness, no longer bouncing across the walls in excitement and nerves. “So…” she said at last, looking up at Simone with her big baby blues. “Do I call Marshall?”

The ball was in her court, now. To let her stay ( _yesyesyesyes_ ) or cut her loose, not to see her again until New Year’s– or possibly later, since her car was out of commission ( _oh my god no no no no no_ )? “It’s up to you,” she said. “It’s been an eventful day. I’d understand if you wanted to go home.”

“And deal with all the Moe-slash-Cake drama?” Fionna grimaced. “Are you kidding me? I love my sister, but I need a break.” Her body rolled with a shiver. “Even if it’s cold here. Note to self, when finally living on own, invest in ten more electric blankets.”

“You’re still cold?” Surprised, Simone glanced about before striding further into the bedroom, pulling the comforter off the bed and depositing the whole thing without warning on top of Fionna’s head. Squeaking in surprise and trying to wrangle herself free, Fionna made a cozy little burrito out of herself in Simone’s chair. 

“Of course, it’d be a different story if you wanted me to leave,” Fionna said. She then paused. “I mean, if you do, that’s okay. I’m tactless but even I know when I’m imposing.”

“You aren’t imposing,” Simone reassured her. “It’s… It’s good to see you. It really is.”

She furrowed deeper into her blankets. “I’m sorry none of this went as planned,” she said, more subdued than Simone could ever recall her being. “After I got out of the accident, I just, well, you know. All I could think was that I could have just been squished. And that would have been it. No more first date, no more vid chats, no more nothing.”

Her hands found their way to her head, smoothing back her hair like she always did when she was anxious. “Yes, I… I figured something like that motivated you to come here.”

“Could you…” She trailed off, pulling the blankets tighter around herself. “Um. Never mind.” She shifted the issue elsewhere. “Where do you want me to sleep?”

Simone decided not to press it. “The bed,” she said. “You’re the guest here. I’ll take the couch.”

Her temper snapped on, synapse-quick. “What? Heck no! I’m the guest, that means I take the couch!”

“You  _just asked_  me where I wanted you to sleep,” Simone pointed out. “You sure you didn’t bump your head in the crash?”

Waving aside her logic, Fionna stood up with the blankets around her shoulder like a cloak. “Okay, fine. I don’t have an issues with that, I have an issue with your reasoning. First I bust in here soaking wet, then I take your clothes, food, and hot water. Now I’m going to take the bed too? Uh uh, I’m camping out in your living room.” She shuffled one bare foot closer, extending it from her cocoon of blankets to nudge at Simone’s ankle. “Pretend that was like, more intimidating than it really was.”

Laughing helplessly, Simone shrugged. “Okay? You are so strange.”

“Only on days ending in Y.” A yawn broke free. “Oh come on, body. It’s only ten. How could I be sleepy?”

Angling herself behind Fionna, Simone rested her hands on her shoulders and started guiding her to the living room. “I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you walked half way across town after a car accident.”

She dug her heels in, whining. “I’m not going to bed till I literally can’t stand any more. I’ve only got so long left a a free woman before I have to face the music and go home.” Turning around when Simone relented, she threw herself into her arms again, hugging her fiercely. “And I missed you.”

Again, Simone didn’t know what to do with her hands. “What?”

“I said I missed you,” Fionna mumbled against her chest. “That’s strange, isn’t it? We’ve never technically met before. How could I miss you? Or this?” Her hand moved up, thumb pressing lightly against the pulse jumping in Simone’s neck. 

So it wasn’t just her. “No it’s… it’s not strange.” The yawning emptiness inside her began roaring at the physical contact. “Sometimes,” she said, returning the embrace at last. Fionna made a noise to let her know she was listening. Should she say this? Fionna had opened the door. It was up to her whether she would cross the threshold. “Sometimes,” she said again, “When I look at you, or I hear your voice, I just get this awful sense of Déjà vu. It throws me completely off-kilter.”

That sounded a lot less crazy in her head. Thankfully, Fionna was nodding in agreement. “That shouldn’t make as much sense as it does. I’m… Grraahhh.” She stomped her feet, pulling away to smack a palm against her forehead a few times. “No, no, no, I don’t want to talk mushy gushy nonsense. Could you kiss me again? That makes sense in a more normal way.”

“You really don’t have any tact, do you?”

“It’s all a part of my roguish charm,” Fionna insisted even as she turned bright red again, refusing to make eye contact. “And you’re–  _ah_!” she flinched as Simone lifted up the end of her shirt just enough to rest her palms on Fionna’s hips, squeezing them lightly and pulling her close. “Your hands are cold,” she whispered, arms twining around Simone’s neck. She could feel her heart beating, racing in time with her own. “Please… please kiss me again.”

She smelled like Simone’s shampoo and soap, which was a little disappointing. Simone wondered what scents she normally carried– what perfume she wore, what chemicals in her makeup. Her back wasn’t smooth under Simone’s fingertips. Distinct lines and scars could be felt, crisscrossing welts and marks that enraged and shocked her. But she wouldn’t say anything if Fionna didn’t– and it didn’t look like she would. Right now she didn’t even seem to know what planet she was on, fingers getting tangled in Simone’s bushy brown hair. 

“Do something for me, first,” Simone said, pressing her lips against Fionna’s forehead. She rumbled with pleasure, her lean body squirming closer against her own. 

Callused knuckles grazed the back of her neck. Soft woman-flesh stretched taut over muscles that were firm even when relaxed; Fionna’s body responded to her exploring touches as she gently cupped her breast, feeling the nipple harden under her thumb. Fionna was right; this was easy to understand. Not worrying anymore about how fast they were moving, Simone just sank into the other woman as much as she could, moving together wave-like. 

“Anything,” Fionna said, the ends of the word trembling. “You know I’d do anything.”

They inched down, down onto the mattress, the blanket loosely wrapped around both of them. Tilting Fionna’s head to the side, she tasted her clean skin, the sensitive parts on her neck. “Tell me what year you were born,” she said against her ear, biting it hard.

Fionna froze halfway through unbuttoning Simone’s shirt. “What?”

“You’re not twenty five,” Simone told her, bracing herself above Fionna on her elbows. “You’re not even twenty one.”

Her hands retreated, defensively crossing over her chest. “I’m not… what? I was born in eighty…eighty…”

“Eighty?” Simone interrupted, stroking the back of her hand against Fionna’s cheek, trying to make her second guess her math. “Eighty, 1980… what? 1985? Why don’t you know what year you were born, Fionna?”

“I was born in '87,” she said, suddenly making eye contact again, rising her hips upward against Simone’s. 

“Are you  _sure_?” Simone said, grinding down harder in response and making her gasp out a startled  _yes_. Her knees pushed against Fionna’s thighs, opening her legs insistently. They wrapped around her waist, and Fionna began undressing her again. “I won’t be mad if you didn’t tell the truth,” she promised her, kissing her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her cold nose, but not her lips. “You knew I was older.”

Her hand worked between them, gliding over Fionna’s stomach and making her twitch. To her increasing worry, she noted that not even her belly went unmarked. 

Her hands were softer than Fionna’s, and she could feel where the healthy skin ended and old wounds began. Where had Fionna gotten all these  _scars_? 

Dipping below the elastic of her borrowed sweatpants, she went low enough to feel her heat, but not enough to give her any real pleasure. “Tell me,” she said again, kissing her everywhere but where she wanted. Her voice had been strangled, before, a lump of desire lodged deep in her throat. But when Fionna didn’t answer her, she lowered it down an octave, seriousness flooding her. “Fionna, don’t lie to me before I make love to you.”

Red all the way down her neck, Fionna pressed her hands against Simone’s shoulders, little noises of desperation escaping her. “Ninety,” she said at last, trying to control herself from bucking up against Simone’s hand. “Ninety,” she said again. “1990. I was born 1990.”

A sense of relief dropped inside her as she did the math. Though she wasn’t twenty-five, she also wasn’t as young as Simone had suspected. Something about the way she carried herself was very young, even if the words that occasionally escaped her hinted at someone who had been forced to be an adult before they were ready. She was only twenty-two. “Oh, thank god.”

Turning on her side, Fionna pulled away from her to sulk, curling up into a ball. “How could you think I was younger than twenty-one?” she complained. “It’s the voice. It’s always the voice.”

“I just knew you were lying about your age,” Simone confessed, sensing the shift in desire and respectfully retreating. “I went to the worst possible scenario. It’s what I do, I guess.” She flopped onto her side, spooning around Fionna after taking a moment to judge her reaction, if she had crossed the line. The sensation of scar tissue burned bright in her mind, but Fionna cuddled up against her and soothed most of her doubts. “I’m sorry,” she said, kissing the top of her head. “You do seem awfully young. And I’m a teacher, I couldn’t– not if you were under eighteen. Not in good conscience.”

She had a response pre-prepared, of course. “The age of consent in this area is seventeen, actually,” she said in her best know-it-all voice, shaking her head with self importance.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” she said, squeezing her tighter around her middle. “Smarty. If you stop to think about it for a few seconds, I’m sure you’ll understand.”

Her body lifted with a sigh. “No, I know.” Putting her hands on top of Simone’s, she shifted closer, her back to Simone’s chest. “I’m sorry for lying. It wasn’t just about you, either. I’ve been lying about my age since I knew how, and I guess the lie just grew alongside me.”

Simone started laughing. “Don’t tell me I’m the first person to sniff you out.”

Taking hold of Simone’s hands, Fionna shifted them up so that they rested on her chest, squeezing them so that Simone was forced to get a handful– not that she was about to complain.  "Hey, what can I say. I’ve got big boobs. Some people are too distracted by them to wonder why an eighteen year old didn’t have her license yet.“

"Really, now?” she massaged them gently, glad to know Fionna still desired her touch. “And how many star struck old cougars fell for it?”

“Oh…” The words had a hard time getting out, her breathing more scattered. “A few.”

That was another lie. She could feel it just as she felt Fionna turn in her arms and kiss her sweetly, mouth covering hers. Her hands, rough in patches and unspeakably soft in others, finished working off Simone’s blouse. Rolling over and pinning her down effortlessly, her thigh snaked between Simone’s, reminding her of what she wanted. Unbidden memories of the text messages from last night stirred her heart and her groin, blossoming up into a slow-burning fire inside her body. 

She kissed her too hard, knocking teeth. (“Ow!” “Sorry, sorry.”) But it was all forgotten soon. There was nothing between them now, no more awkwardness, no more grating, obvious lies. Just the fact that it felt good, so good, to snake her hands up along Fionna’s waist, helping her out of her shirt. 

In that moment, with her arms stretched high above her, Simone got a good look at the slash that bisected her body in a wicked curve. Old enough to have healed over, but fresh enough to have not faded yet, the scar was not something easily explained away. 

She didn’t pretend not to notice, that she wasn’t staring. Running the end of her finger along it, Simone said nothing, just felt Fionna’s muscles flutter and twitch under her touch. Sitting up enough to reach it, she kissed the spot of its inception, just to the left of her navel. 

“It’s not a long, tragic story,” Fionna said, reaching down Simone’s back to unhook her bra with trembling hands. Once her breasts were free, she coiled her hands deep into Simone’s hair, forcing her head up to look into her eyes. They were dark, intense. The smile that usually graced her features was gone, replaced with a thin, firm line. “Just a psycho with a knife.”

“You’ve been though a lot.” It was pathetic, how little that phrase meant. It  _sounded_  pathetic, and small. 

But Fionna knew her shadows, too, their late-night conversations sometimes treading on this territory. “Everybody has,” she said, quieting her unvoiced fears with another kiss. Her tongue seemed to unfurl into her mouth, parting her lips, flicking across her teeth. She wanted to memorize the way her lips felt, every line and every curve. They wanted to know her too, tracing kisses down her neck and collarbone, suckling there in a way that was sure to leave a mark.

The button of her jeans popped open, the fly unzipped. “Can I touch you, Simone?” she asked, the edges of her words ragged. Simone nodded, pulling her close so that the bare skin of their chests pressed together. Sneaking a hand between them, Fionna worked underneath the elastic of her underwear, stroking her finally, finally. There was only so much she could do with the jeans halfway down her hips, restricting how far Simone could open her thighs, but it was wonderful anyway. 

She couldn’t escape the noises that left her gasping mouth even if she wanted to, holding on tightly to Fionna’s biceps. “I liked these jeans a lot better when they weren’t in the way,” Fionna was telling her. “They’re too tight. Get 'em off.” She was even thoughtful enough to add, “Please?” to the end.

“Nope,” Simone said, surprising herself as she caught Fionna by the wrist, grinning. “You first.”

“Hell no, not after the stunt you just pulled.” Fionna’s free fingers twisted around Simone’s belt loops, pulling her close. “You really wanna play that game with me?” she asked.

She ran her hands along Fionna’s back, teasing along her spine. Reaching just past the elastic on Fionna’s sweatpants, she grasped her ass firmly, giving it a squeeze. “That’s the idea.”

In response, Fionna slid her fingers deeper into the space between Simone’s legs, rubbing against the slickness she felt there. Simone let out a flustered, “Oh, Jesus,” before her grip slackened and her head tilted back, neck exposed to Fionna’s lips. Only mildly ashamed that her willpower wasn’t as strong as she liked to believe it was, Simone started pulling her pants further down. “O-okay, me first.”

With a self-satisfied smirk, Fionna released her to shuck off her jeans as fast as she could. She had to stand up to do so, finally managing to kick them off as she felt strong hands on her shoulders, yanking her back down to the bed. Fionna kissed her hungrily, her calluses scraping across Simone’s soft body. She tried to do the same until Fionna stopped her, iron grip around her wrists warning her: not yet. Not until Fionna had kissed all of her, like she wanted to. She sucked and licked her way down until she had shuffled her way between Simone’s legs, lifting her hips up to swipe her tongue between her wet folds, eyes closed in bliss.

She just seemed to want to taste her, not focusing on the sensitive bundle of nerves hidden inside but all along the length of her, dipping inside her crevasse, lips curling against sensitive skin. Breaking away at one point to clean her mouth by kissing the insides of Simone’s thighs over and over again, she admitted without fear, “I have no idea what I’m doing so feel free to get pushy.”

“Trust me,” Simone said, chest heaving as she gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind Fionna’s ear. “You’re doing fine. Just, ah…”

Fionna snapped her fingers, supporting Simone with just one arm above the curve of her buttocks. It didn’t even shake with exertion. “Knew it.”

“Hush. Focus on my clit more, if you really need instruction so badly.” She might have been too intimidated by their intimacy to say this to anyone else, but Fionna made it easy. Like their normal back-and-forth. “And start gently,” she added as Fionna lowered her head, urged downwards by Simone’s hands in her hair.

“Mmhmm,” she mumbled against her, the vibration driving her wild. Just like Simone asked, she started with the barest feathery touch, letting her gasp and twist before starting up again, firmer each time. Her thigh’s death grip on head on her head might have been clue enough but she still wanted to express her satisfaction some other way, tell Fionna how wonderful her tongue felt against her. Instead, she was only able to produce a series of feeble whimpers.

She nearly jolted off the bed when Fionna lowered her hips to better angle a finger inside her. Only one, being careful and gentle with her. Surprised at her reaction, she peeked up from one half-open eyelid, eyebrows rising in a question as her mouth was currently otherwise occupied. 

“It’s good,” Simone said, heart throbbing. Her pleasure mounted, growing steadily stronger the more Fionna lavished her with affection. Neck limp and head lolling to the side, she lifted one hand to press the heel of her palm against her mouth. “Ah, so good.”

“Of course it is,” Fionna couldn’t resist pausing to say. That earned her an ungentle tug on her hair. Rolling with it, Fionna just gave her an easy grin. “Now tell me to keep going.”

Really? She was going to stop  _now_  just to tease her? Simone felt as though she’d been carried lovingly to the edge of a seaside cliff only for Fionna to toss her over the side without warning. “Oh my god,” she panted, “I hate you.”

Fionna was kissing her thighs again, making her twitch her hips up instinctively in a silent plea for her lips to return to where they were. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. Guess I’ll just leave.” Despite her words, she dragged her tongue along her once again– but only once, just to see her shiver.

Simone let go of her only to grab a pillow and place it over her head, muffling her exasperated whines. “What was that? I can’t hear you,” Fionna said, easily working two fingers inside her now. “Get that pillow out of your mouth, silly. Can’t you see I’m asking you a question?”

She didn’t want to be too noisy, or put on a show, but Fionna seemed intent on making her do just that. “Just keep doing what you were doing!" 

Fionna did as she said, but not before yanking the pillow out of her hands and kissing her full on the mouth. Simone got a taste of herself before Fionna returned to her painfully aroused clit. There weren’t many words after that; just  _faster_ ; and  _more_ ; and  _yes_ ; and, occasionally,  _Fionna_. The other woman kept on, riding out the eventual orgasm with patience and tenderness.

When she could focus enough to form solid thoughts, Simone noticed Fionna still resting between her legs, one cheek lying on her inner thigh and discreetly wiping the shine from her lips. "Was that fine, ma'am, or should I try again?” To prove her point, Fionna slid her tongue against Simone’s oversensitive clit as lightly as she could, the faintest touch enough to shock another gasp from her. When she didn’t protest, she tried it again, licking clean all the wet proof of her orgasm. If Simone had been speechless before, it was doubly true now. All her reservations about being noisy flew right out the window, crying loudly at the extra attention.

“Ah, F… Fionna, what are you doing?” she said, her grasping hands trying to touch whatever they could reach. Fionna sucked on her clit instead of answering, not that Simone really expected an answer, sitting up to stroke along Fionna’s scarred back. She traced them with her fingers, still aware enough of them to wonder who in Fionna’s past could have hurt her. She wished she could seal them and put them away, zip them up where Fionna never had to think about them ever again. Most of all she wished she had a time machine, to throttle the person who dared put them on her. They had slid to the edge of the mattress in their ceaseless movement, Fionna half off but not stopping. Curling forward to kiss the top of her head, Simone moaned. “I’ll come again if you keep… keep that up…”

“Good,” Fionna breathed against her, the shape and movement of her lips sending Simone into a fresh batch of squirming movements. Fionna held on, trying to keep her still. “I want that, I want you to come.”

She wanted it, too, coming quicker than the first time. Afterwards Fionna rested comfortably in her arms, marking her neck with languorous kisses she barely felt. She rolled her fingers through her tangled blond hair, careful not to get them caught on too many knots and just resting in the steady aftershocks of her release until Fionna nudged her with her forehead, whispering into her ear in a patently false, girlish voice. “ _Oh Professor, I’d do a-a-anything for an A…_ ”

Simone burst into wild laughter, pushing her aside. “You are the hugest creep!”

Wrestling her way back into her arms, Fionna locked her legs around Simone, grinning against her mouth. “But Miss Petrikov, that’s why you like me.”

Shaking with helpless giggles, she squeezed her wrists free from Fionna’s iron grip somehow to push her palm against her mouth, trying to shush her. “No, stop. Oh my god, shut up.”

She tried slobbering on Simone’s palm to get her to release her but that didn’t work, so she started biting her playfully and found a ticklish spot on Simone’s ribs, causing her to jerk free. “No, I just boned a teacher, I gotta live it up. That’s gotta be high on  _someone’s_  list of fantasies.” Darting forward, she pecked her on the forehead. “Namely mine. Don’t ruin this for me, Simone.”

Lying side by side, Simone’s fingers walked their way between them, disappearing underneath the hem of Fionna’s pants to find her warm, and wet, and ready. “So you were just using me, hmm?” she asked her, getting only a few scattered gasps in reply. Fionna squished against her, one leg tossed possessively over her hip, making more room for Simone to maneuver. “Guess I’m just another notch in your belt.”

“N-no…” she said, instantly reigned in and subdued by Simone’s hand stroking her. Head tucked underneath Simone’s chin, she rolled her hips in a familiar rhythm. “I was just kidding. It’s only you. You’re the one I want.”

This could have been a good chance to enact revenge, to keep Fionna suspended on the edge of climax. But Simone wasn’t that cruel or that patient, and the sensation of having Fionna be a mewling mess under her hands was too satisfying to stop for another game of squabbling over who was in charge. She kept her there for as long as Fionna wanted, attentive to her movements and sounds and where she liked to be touched. She kept her there until she was pleading her name, begging to be fucked, “please Simone,  _please_.” She gave into her demands, digging her first three fingers into her while her thumb rested on her clit. The muscles clenched around her hand, Fionna stiffening and going dead silent as she came, her arms tightening around Simone. She only whimpered once when Simone slid out of her to lick her fingers clean and kiss her again.

She only seemed to have enough in her for one orgasm, twitching her hips away when Simone tried to repay her earlier favor. “Just hold me,” she said, molded against her with her head still tucked underneath Simone’s chin. Sighing with content when Simone did so, they twisted together comfortably, heartbeats still thudding loudly. “I’m so glad I’m with you,” she said in the same voice she had used when they had first met in the landing. Unsteady and a little afraid, but mostly hopeful.

“Me, too,” she assured her, kissing the top of her head. She fell fast asleep soon after that, all the events of the day catching up to her at last. Simone tried not to laugh at it, instead enjoying the sensation of a warm body tangled with hers. The small noises she made in her dreams. The deep, sleeping breaths. 

So much for the couch. 


	3. Chapter 3

Some time in the middle of the night, they both stirred into a half-awake, cotton-headed awareness. Not used to sharing a bed, there was a brief rearrangement of limbs and shared blanket until they were comfortably wrapped up together again. Simone pulled Fionna close, kissed the top of her head, and fell back asleep.

The other woman was still in her arms when the sun blaring through her windows let her know it was time to wake up for real now. Dead to the world, Fionna’s steady breathing didn’t shift or change as Simone carefully got up. Not wanting to disturb her, she tip toed to the shower and let the hot water hiss over her. Trying to make sense of the knotted brambles in her hair was almost as difficult as sifting through the buzzing white noise that had replaced all her coherent thoughts. Her fingers lingered over small love marks Fionna had left on her body, responding to the light touch with warm arousal and flushed embarrassment. For the life of her, she couldn’t even recall when she had gotten most of them, just that each one made her think of Fionna’s parted lips, wet and gasping.

There was no way she could just sit around waiting for Fionna to wake up. A small knot snarled in her chest at the idea. Propelled by the fear of hanging about and trying to be quiet in her own apartment, Simone got dressed and left as quick as she could, locking the door behind her. She made sure to scribble a small note to the girl, leaving it posted to the coffee maker where she was sure Fionna would see it. She didn’t really have an idea of what she was going to do next, but her feet knew what her head didn’t. They led her around the block to the small, local coffee shop she had never visited before but often spotted on her way to work: The Pink Koffee Kup. Back when Fionna had lived in this area, before she met Simone through a stroke of luck on an online chatting service, this had been her favorite place. They had promised to meet there in real life, but Fionna wound up at her apartment instead after getting into a car accident on her way to their first official date.

 

Nothing really went according to anyone’s plan after that. Shaking her head, Simone walked inside. Wind chimes greeted her arrival, and the barista looked up at the prospective new customer with a smile and a greeting. Far from her mental image of the place having a hot pink decor, the interior boasted warm red and brown tones on the shelves and on its well-loved furniture. “Well-loved” was always her mother’s polite way of saying “second-hand and aging,” not that this always implied an insult. Nothing seemed to match, and a lot of it seemed to be donated or taken from yard sales. Instead of run down, though, it made the store seem like some young person’s living room, where one could do their work in peace and quiet.

After a quick glance at the menu, she ordered a coffee and two pastries. They were baked in-house and a fresh batch was on their way out of the ovens, so she decided to wait for those instead of getting the ones already on display. Flicking her phone open and relaxing into a chair, she checked her email quickly, but the words blurred together. Her mind just wasn’t on work right now. In fact, it wasn’t on anything at all. Last night could have been a dream, for all she knew. The coffee helped sharpen her senses a little, but beyond that she was still trying to figure out how, if at all, this might change her relationship with Fionna.

Sexual relationships more than any other kind had the greatest possibility of going South in the most disastrous manner, in her experience. So she was cautious with who she trusted that kind of intimacy, often to the point of paranoia.

Not a complete prude by nature, Simone still often had reservations about innocent kissing on a first date. But things seemed so different with Fionna; she trusted her implicitly. She wanted her, couldn’t recall wanting anything as much as she wanted her, and Fionna seemed to feel the same way. 

_Ah, but it’s not that simple, is it?_

(Is it ever?)

Coffee and white-hot guilt sank down into her stomach in equal measure. Fionna was 22, almost exactly a decade younger than Simone. They were in different stages in their lives. Could Fionna really know that what she wanted was a high school teacher with a meager salary and too many personal hang-ups?

The pastries were ready. It was just five minutes shy of half an hour since she had left Fionna alone in her apartment, which, now that she had a decent amount of caffeine in her system, seemed like an increasingly shitty move. She purchased them and, on another whim, also snatched a bag of ground coffee beans. Then she left, the wind chimes tinkling their goodbyes. 

Trekking up the stairs, pastry in hand, she found that Fionna hadn’t even stirred once since she left. All this over thinking and under thinking and nerves were going to be the death of her. Though she had a strict one-cup-a-day routine going for her, these last few days had been filled with exceptions, so one more couldn’t hurt. Brewing up another pot, she idled in front of the stove, munching on her pastry.   
  
She thought about her parents, as she often did when logic and emotion began to collide. The two of them had been about as far from traditional as legally possible- a factor which contributed to their final decision to leave Tehran. They were both gone now, though. Long gone, to a place Simone couldn’t follow. Another fact she shared with Fionna, though Fionna had been orphaned at birth, and didn’t know enough of her parents to mourn them.  
  
The age gap between them had been ten years as well.  
  
Mired in the maze of her own thoughts, Simone started when a pair of arms wrapped around her waist, holding her tightly. “Hello,” Fionna mumbled, her forehead resting in between Simone’s shoulder blades. Her heart rate picked up at the contact.  
  
“Hi.” She laced their fingers together, grabbing one of Fionna’s hands to raise it to her lips. “Sleep well?”  
  
“Mhmm. Like a baby. Or a log. Or a rock. Wait, babies wake up all the time?” she lifted her head up, questioning the ceiling. “How is it lumped with those other two? Similes. Similiessss. Oh, is there one of those for me?”  
  
Winding around her like an affectionate cat, Fionna got up on her tip toes to take a bite out of Simone’s pastry. Shaking her off with a laugh, Simone produced the other one from the bag on the stove, handing it to her. “Did you go to the Kup without me?” Fionna asked, the ends of her mouth curling downwards in a dramatic pout.  
  
Simone tried desperately not to turn into a pathetic puddle of melted goo at the sight. It was an uphill battle. Instead of answering, she indulged herself in the fact that Fionna did not seem to understand the definition of personal space, and held her by the back of her head to pull her in for a kiss. Her fine blonde hair, normally falling thick with waves, instead felt knotted and unruly and curly in a way Simone assumed it only achieved after a night of rigorous sex. And of course sleeping with wet hair.  
  
She liked it.  
  
Parting with a soft sigh, Fionna looked up at her, making Simone painfully aware of how thick the lump in her throat was getting. “…That feels so nice,” she said under her breath, darting up on the tips of her toes to kiss her again. “But you’re not off the hook!”  
  
“You were asleep.”  
  
“Si _mo_ -one.” She bumped her forehead against Simone’s chest, groaning her name and latching on tight.  
  
“Fine,” Simone said. “Next time I’ll forcibly shake you awake and drag you half conscious to the Kup. Happy?”

That did make her happy. Happy enough that she couldn’t speak, wiggling in place with her elbows tucked tight against her body and her eyes clenched shut. “Yessssss,” she said after a moment, clearing her throat and zipping over to the kitchen table. “Yes, that works,” she said, perched on the edge of the table so that her short legs swung back and forth. Face a little flushed now, she still tried to redeem herself by attempting to play it cool after her outburst. “Sorry for the excite dance, I was just– celebrating the fact that you want there to be a next time.”

It was easier to focus on the first part rather than the second. “Excite dance?”

Fionna buried her face in her hands. “Oh no, no. I’m acting all weird all of a sudden. Help.”

“What are you talking about? You’re this weird 24/7.”

The coffee finished brewing. Asking how Fionna took hers, she prepared two cups, feeling incredibly domestic and not at all weighed down by the anxieties that had overtaken her this morning. It was hard to stay introspective and mopey when there was a beautiful, half-naked woman in your kitchen showering you with affection. Fionna inhaled her pastry lightning-quick and ordered Simone to drown her coffee in sugar and cream. “Chop, chop, Miss Petrikov,” she said, snapping her fingers several times in succession. “Bring it here.”

Simone set Fionna’s cup down on the counter with an intentional clack, the liquid inside almost sloshing over the rim. Taking hers black and sweet, Simone sipped at her coffee, raising both eyebrows at Fionna. “Well if you’re going to be so bossy, come get it yourself.

"My legs are still trembly,” she said, simply.

Even if it wasn’t true– and Simone couldn’t tell if it was– it motivated her to cross the short distance between the kitchen area and the dining area, pressing the mug into her hands. “That’s right. You were running all around town last night, you poor thing.” Then, because she could, she tucked her blonde hair behind her ear. It kept falling forward, not that Simone minded much. “…Which was  _a dumb thing to do_ , by the way.”

“Hey, if you want me to leave, I can.”

Though she meant it as a joke, Fionna’s smile had an edge of concern to it, expression pleading. Some part of her was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That was terrible. Simone didn’t want her to feel that way.

Simone never wanted her to feel that way.

Fionna took her time with the coffee, surprisingly enough. Not that she really needed it. Her addiction to caffeine still stood in its psychological stage, not yet at the point where she would physically ache without it. “I don’t,” Simone said after too much time had passed, after breakfast and cleaning the dishes together and tossing Fionna’s wet clothes into the laundry. Like this wasn’t their first morning together, like they had done this a million times before, in a million different bodies.

Afternoon sunlight sifted in through the windows. They stood on the balcony, Fionna tucked into her clean, dry clothes. Fists buried deep inside her hoodie pockets, she glanced aside at Simone. “Sorry?”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Simone said, still sondering down at the street below. Pedestrians passed, each wrapped up in their own lives. Shaking her head, she didn’t wait for Fionna to say anything, instead linking her arms around her waist and pulling her close. “But let’s not think about that. Did you contact your family? When do they want you home?”

Fionna’s lip twisted. “Yesterday. But I told them Marshall couldn’t give me a ride home until tomorrow– which is kind of true. He said he’s leaving me with you as punishment because he thinks we’re a bad idea.” Her grin let Simone know what she thought of Marshall’s idea of punishment.

“All right.” Simone thought about it, head propped on top of Fionna’s. “Okay. So why don’t we do the downtown date tonight, like we said we would? That’s why you came in the first place.”

Eyebrows misbehaving, Fionna pressed indecently against her. “I wouldn’t say that’s why I came.”

“Don’t be vulgar.”

Unbuttoning Simone’s pea coat, she found it almost roomy enough to cuddle in. “Still, they don’t light up the streets till it gets dark,” she said, her back to the balcony railing, her hands finding their way under her girlfriend’s clothing. “What ever will we do till thennnn? Hmmm, what a conundrum.”

Simone glanced about, conscious of any nosy neighbors who might be peeking. But they were the only ones on the apartment balconies; everyone else had been driven inside by the cold. “Maybe you shouldn’t exert yourself,” she said, patting her on the head condescendingly. “Weren’t you too wobbly to walk this morning?”

That didn’t do much to dissuade her. “You’re right, that’s why I vote you do all the work.”

She let out a long sigh, breath steaming up the air like a dragon. “Fine,” she said with a decisive nod, shuffling Fionna back into the apartment and locking the door behind her and shutting the blinds. Without warning, she bent down and wrapped her arms just underneath Fionna’s hips, hoisting her up onto the kitchen table before she could protest.

“Hey, now–” Fionna said with a grin, but Simone was kissing her now and she couldn’t do much except link her arms around her neck and sigh into her mouth. Simone unzipped her hoodie, helping her pull it off before dipping to suck at her neck, refreshing the hickies that were already there. Fionna was trying to do the same to Simone’s jacket, but she grabbed her hands. Looking her in the eyes, Simone set them firmly down on the polished wooden table top. When she was sure Fionna got the message, she unbuckled her belt, pulling it loose and popped open the top button on her jeans. She pushed up her shirt enough to kiss her navel, and the very edge of her long, wicked scar. 

“Don’t,” Fionna warned her, suddenly nervous. Simone looked up at her with questioning eyes as she inched down the hem of her t-shirt, covering up the scar again. “Not in full daylight,” she muttered. “It’s… it’s really not pretty.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Simone said.

“It bothers me.” A pause. “It bothered my last girlfriend.”

Chewing that over for a bit, Simone found it left a bad taste in her mouth. “So wait. Someone else was lucky enough to sex you up, and they had the nerve to complain?” she said, huffing loudly and making Fionna laugh again, comfortable enough to let Simone kiss her again, though she kept her shirt on as requested.

Wiggling out of her jeans and underwear, she couldn’t answer at first as Simone helped her get them off her feet only to start kissing up her calves, half bent over since the table was too tall for her to get on her knees. “Mmm, well, I didn’t let her get as far as you,” Fionna said, running her hands through Simone’s thick hair– or trying, at least. It seemed made for tangling, ensnaring any innocent fingers that dared to brave through it.

“Good girl,” Simone said before nipping at her inner thigh, easing one leg up over her shoulder.

**OoOoOo**

They weren’t comfortable enough to walk hand in hand yet, but as the night grew darker and the air colder, they linked arms as they walked downtown, watching all the Christmas decorations flicker on one by one.

“You were right,” Simone said as they paused outside a few stores, window shopping and discussing possible gifts for their friends and each other. “This is fantastically gay.”

Fionna snorted, pulling her closer. “Hey, are you complaining?”

“Noooo,” Simone said in a little sing-song voice. “I’m having fun. This is fun.”

“Of course it is. Stick with me, kid, I’ll take you places.”

“I drove–” Simone started, but was cut off by an unfamiliar voice shouting out her name. The two of them turned towards the sound to see a young man bounding over to them, waving his hand in greeting. A snorting, grunting bulldog followed close on his heels, held in check by a neon yellow leash.

“Ms. Petrikov! I thought it was you,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “I– phew, gimme a second.” Bending over, he held his knees as he tried to catch his breath. A big blast of steam fogged up the air as he exhaled. Straightening out at last, he tossed the handle of the leash from hand to hand, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I just wanted to say hi.”

Though she smiled, she seemed a little more subdued than usual. "Hello, Mr. Mertens,“ Simone said, bending down to scratch behind the dog’s ears. "And hello to you too, Jake,” she added to the dog. “Last minute gift shopping?”

Always one of her less focused students, it was still hard to dislike Finn Mertens. “Oh, boy, you know it,” he said, unable to stand still. “I’m heading off to visit relatives tomorrow and I’m goin ba nay nay trying to get everything together last minute.” Lowering his voice, he grimly admitted, “I’m actually not even packed yet. Oh man. Hey, who’s this? You friends with Ms. Petrikov?”

The last comment took Fionna for a loop. She blinked, uncomfortable shifting with her arm still linked with Simone’s, and looked up at her for help.

“My girlfriend, actually,” Simone corrected him.

His eyes popped a little and he sucked in his upper lip. “Ohh!” he said. “Oh. Of course! My bad. I mean. Not "of course”. I mean… I mean hi! I’m Finn. This is my buddy Jake. Say hi Jake!“ He gestured to the bulldog, who woofed on command. 

"Fionna,” she introduced herself. 

Shoving his hands deep into his coat pockets, leash and all, Finn rocked back and forth on his heels. “Well, it was super cool seeing you before I left, ma'am.” He fidgeted, but not out of nerves– just his regular case of too much energy. “Hope you have fun over your break too!”

“I’ll try,” she said, and with a jaunty wave Finn bounced off, his dog trotting along behind him.

Fionna let out a long breath, letting go of her death grip on Simone’s arm. They kept quiet for a bit after that until the crowds started dissipating and the stores began closing for the night. By then they were frigid and more than ready to go home, teeth chattering as Simone fiddled with the heater of her car, cursing it when it refused to work. 

By the time they reached home, the street outside Simone’s apartment was quiet and dark, all its residents long gone to sleep. Rushing up the steps and sighing with relief when they could finally take off their coats and bask in the heat of her cozy living room, Fionna finally spoke. 

Heating up a cup of chamomile, Fionna carefully looked everywhere but Simone. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she drew circles on the nicked surface with her fingertip. “I didn’t know if you were out to your students or anything,” she said, sounding apologetic. “I should have asked before I got all close to you in public.” A sudden thought made her glance up, eyes wide. “Oh! God, you can’t get fired for that or anything, can you?”

“I’m out where I work,” Simone reassured her, smoothing back her fine blonde hair. “Don’t worry.”

“I have to worry,” she muttered, actually pausing long enough to blow on her cup before draining it halfway down. Simone took it from her, setting it down firmly and holding Fionna’s face in both hands to kiss her, hard. She returned it, hooking her arms underneath Simone’s and squeezing her. “I have to leave tomorrow,” she said when they were done, her head on Simone’s chest.

“I know.”

“The car is… it’s wrecked. I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back. Or how.”

Kissing her forehead, Simone tried to smooth away the worry lines that were beginning to form. “I’ll drive up to you if I have to. Or buy your bus ticket to bring you back. We’ll figure it out. All right?”

Pulling back, Fionna only frowned deeper. “But I can’t ask you to–”

“I’m not waiting another year to see you again,” Simone said, point blank. “Not after this, I– Oh  _Christ_ , your fingers are like ice!” she squeaked, peeling Fionna’s hands off the back of her neck. They laughed over that; Fionna finished her tea.

The time passed too quickly, and before she knew it, their last day together was over. In the morning Fionna was disappeared around the corner, tucked into the passenger seat of a surly, tattooed young man’s car. 

Feet weighed down with dread, Simone somehow climbed back up to her empty apartment, aware of the silence more than ever before. Sitting down on her couch, she pulled her hair out of her eyes, reclining back and sighing deeply.

“I should get a cat,” she said into the air, unable to soothe the ache forming deep in her chest. That's when her phone jingled, a familiar ring tone making her smile.

 _Bye, baby,_ Fionna texted her. _I'll see you again soon._


End file.
